^3M^^fe 


(SngliaJ)  Mtn  of  tttUxs 

EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


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Add'l 


GIFT 


PR  3  72-7 


PEEFACE. 

The  chief  materials  for  a  life  of  Swift  are  to  be  found  in 
his  writings  and  correspondence.  The  best  edition  is  the 
second  of  the  two  edited  by  Scott  (1814  and  1824). 

In  1751  Lord  Orrery  published  Remarks  upon  the  Life 
and  Writings  of  Dr.  Jonathan  Swift.  Orrery,  born  1707, 
had  known  Swift  from  about  1732.  His  remarks  give 
the  views  of  a  person  of  quality  of  more  ambition  than 
capacity,  and  more  anxious  to  exhibit  his  own  taste  than 
to  give  full  or  accurate  information. 

In  1754  Dr.  Delany  published  Observations  upon  Lord 
Orrery's  Remarks,  intended  to  vindicate  Swift  against 
some  of  Orrery's  severe  judgments.  Delany,  born  about 
1685,  became  intimate  with  Swift  soon  after  the  Dean's 
final  settlement  in  Ireland.  He  was  then  one  of  the  au- 
thorities of  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  He  is  the  best  con- 
temporary authority,  so  far  as  he  goes. 

In  1756  Deane  Swift,  grandson  of  Swift's  uncle,  God- 
win, and  son-in-law  to  Swift's  cousin  and  faithful  guar- 
dian, Mrs.  Whiteway,  published  an  Essay  upon  the  Life, 
Writings,  and  Character  of  Dr.  Jonathan  Swift,  in  which 
he  attacks  both  his  predecessors.  Deane  Swift,  born 
about  1708,  had  seen  little  or  nothing  of  his  cousin  till 
the  year  1738,  when  the  Dean's  faculties  were  decaying. 

553 


vi  -        PREFACE. 

His  book  is  foolish  and  discursive.  Deane  Swift's  son, 
Theophilus,  communicated  a  good  deal  of  doubtful  matter 
to  Scott,  on  the  authority  of  family  tradition. 

In  1765  Hawkesworth,  who  had  no  personal  knowl- 
edge, prefixed  a  life  of  Swift  to  an  edition  of  the  works 
which  adds  nothing  to  our  information.  In  1781  John- 
son, when  publishing  a  very  perfunctory  life  of  Swift  as 
one  of  the  poets,  excused  its  shortcomings  on  the  ground 
of  having  already  communicated  his  thoughts  to  Hawkes- 
worth. The  life  is  not  only  meagre  but  injured  by  one 
of  Johnson's  strong  prejudices. 

In  1785  Thomas  Sheridan  produced  a  pompous  and 
dull  life  of  Swift.  He  was  the  son  of  Swift's  most  inti- 
m^e  companion  during  the  whole  period  subsequent  to 
the  final  settlement  in  Ireland.  The  elder  Sheridan,  how- 
ever, died  in  1738;  and  the  younger,  born  in  1721,  was 
still  a  boy  when  Swift  was  becoming  imbecile. 

Contemporary  writers,  except  Delany,  have  thus  little 
authority;  and  a  number  of  more  or  less  palpably  ficti- 
tious anecdotes  accumulated  round  their  hero.  Scott's 
life,  originally  published  in  1814,  is  defective  in  point  of 
accuracy.  Scott  did  not  investigate  the  evidence  minute- 
ly, and  liked  a  good  story  too  well  to  be  very  particular 
about  its  authenticity.  The  book,  however,  shows  his 
strong  sense  and  genial  appreciation  of  character  ;  and  re- 
mains, till  this  day,  by  far  the  best  account  of  Swift's 
career. 

A  life  which  supplies  Scott's  defects  in  great  measure 
was  given  by  William  Monck  Mason,  in  1819,  in  his  His- 
tory and  Antiquities  of  the  Church  of  St.  Patrick.  Monck 
Mason  was  an  indiscriminate  admirer,  and  has  a  provok- 
ing method  of  expanding  undigested  information  into 
monstrous  notes,  after  the  precedent  of  Bayle.     But  he 


PREFACE.  vii 

examined  facts  with  the  utmost  care,  and  every  biographer 
must  respect  his  authority. 

In  1875  Mr.  Forster  published  the  first  instalment  of  a 
Ufe  of  Swift.  This  book,  which  contains  the  results  of 
patient  and  thorough  inquiry,  was  unfortunately  inter- 
rupted by  Mr.  Forster's  death,  and  ends  at  the  beginning 
of  1 711.  A  complete  Life  by  Mr.  Henry  Craik  is  an- 
nounced as  about  to  appear. 

Besides  these  books,  I  ought  to  mention  an  Essay  upon 
the  Earlier  Part  of  the  Life  of  Swifts  by  the  Rev.  John 
Barrett,  B.D.  and  Vice-Provost  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin 
(London,  1808);  and  The  Closing  Years  of  Dean  Swiff  s 
Ufe,  by  W.  R.  Wilde,  M.R.I.A.,  F.R.C.S.  (Dublin,  1849). 
This  last  is  a  very  interesting  study  of  the  medical  aspects 
of  Swift's  life.  An  essay  by  Dr.  Bucknill,  in  Brain  for 
January,  1882,  is  a  remarkable  contribution  to  the  same 
subject. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I.  p^,, 

Eakly  Yeaks 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
Moor  Park  and  Kilroot 12 

CHAPTER  III. 
Early  WRiriNGs 32 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Laracor  and  London 51 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Harley  Administration 77 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Stella  and  Vanessa 117 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Wood's  Halfpence 145 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Gulliver's  Travels 166 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Decline 183 


4 


SWIFT. 

CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY    YEARS. 

Jonathan  Swift,  tlie  famous  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  was 
the  descendant  of  an  old  Yorkshire  family.  One  branch 
had  migrated  southwards,  and  in  the  time  of  Charles  I. 
Thomas  Swift,  Jonathan's  grandfather,  was  Vicar  of 
Goodrich,  near  Ross,  in  Herefordshire,  a  fact  commemo- 
rated by  the  sweetest  singer  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  in  the 
remarkable  lines : 

"  Jonathan  Swift 
Had  the  gift 
By  f  atherige,  motherige, 
And  by  brotherige, 
To  come  from  Gotheridge." 

Thomas  Swift  married  Elizabeth  Dryden,  niece  of  Sir 
Erasmus,  the  grandfather  of  the  poet  Dryden.  By  her 
he  became  the  father  of  ten  sons  and  four  daughters.  In 
the  great  rebellion  he  distinguished  himself  by  a  loyalty 
which  was  the  cause  of  obvious  complacency  to  his  de- 
scendant. On  one  occasion  he  came  to  the  governor  of  a 
town  held  for  the  King,  and  being  asked  what  he  could 
do  for  his  Majesty,  laid  down  his  coat  as  an  offering. 
The  governor  remarked  that  his  coat  was  worth   little. 


2  SWIFT.  [chap. 

"Then,"  said  Swift,  "take  my  waistcoat."  The  waist- 
coat was  lined  with  three  hundred  broad  pieces — a  hand- 
some offering  from  a  poor  and  plundered  clergyman.  On 
another  occasion  he  armed  a  ford,  through  which  rebel 
cavalry  were  to  pass,  by  certain  pieces  of  iron  with  four 
spikes,  so  contrived  that  one  spike  must  always  be  upper- 
most {caltrops,  in  short).  Two  hundred  of  the  enemy 
were  destroyed  by  this  stratagem.  The  success  of  the 
rebels  naturally  led  to  the  ruin  of  this  Cavalier  clergyman  ; 
and  the  record  of  his  calamities  forms  a  conspicuous  arti- 
cle in  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy.  He  died  in 
1658,  before  the  advent  of  the  better  times  in  which  he 
might  have  been  rewarded  for  his  loyal  services.  His 
numerous  family  had  to  struggle  for  a  living.  The  eldest 
son,  Godwin  Swift,  was  a  barrister  of  Gray's  Inn  at  the 
time  of  the  Restoration :  he  was  married  four  times,  and 
three  times  to  women  of  fortune ;  his  first  wife  had  been 
related  to  the  Ormond  family ;  and  this  connexion  in- 
duced him  to  seek  his  fortune  in  Ireland — a  kingdom 
which  at  that  time  suffered,  amongst  other  less  endurable 
grievances,  from  a  deficient  supply  of  lawyers.^  Godwin 
Swift  was  made  Attorney-General  in  the  palatinate  of 
Tipperary  by  the  Duke  of  Ormond.  He  prospered  in  his 
profession,  in  the  subtle  parts  of  which,  says  his  nephew, 
he  was  "  perhaps  a  little  too  dexterous ;"  and  he  engaged 
in  various  speculations,  having  at  one  time  what  was  then 
the  very  large  income  of  3000/.  a  yean  Four  brothers 
accompanied  this  successful  Godwin,  and  shared  to  some 
extent  in  his  prosperity.  In  January,  1666,  one  of  these, 
Jonathan,  married  to  Abigail  Erick,  of  Leicester,  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  stewardship  of  the  King's  Inns,  Dublin, 
partly  in  consideration  of  the  loyalty  and  suffering   of 

'  Dean's  Swift,  p.  1 5. 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS.  8 

his  family.  Some  fifteen  months  later,  in  April,  1667,  he 
died,  leaving  his  widow  with  an  infant  daughter,  and  seven 
months  after  her  husband's  death,  November  30, 1667,  she 
gave  birth  to  Jonathan,  the  younger,  at  7  Hoey's  Court, 
Dublin. 

The  Dean  "  hath  often  been  heard  to  say  "  (I  quote  his 
fragment  of  autobiography)  "  that  he  felt  the  consequences 
of  that  (his  parents')  marriage,  not  only  through  the  whole 
course  of  his  education,  but  during  the  greater  part  of  his 
life."  This  quaint  assumption  that  a  man's  parentage  is 
a  kind  of  removable  accident  to  which  may  be  attributed 
a  limited  part  of  his  subsequent  career,  betrays  a  charac- 
teristic sentiment.  Swift  cherished  a  vague  resentment 
against  the  fates  which  had  mixed  bitter  ingredients  in 
his  lot.  He  felt  the  place  as  well  as  the  circumstances  of 
his  birth  to  be  a  grievance.  It  gave  a  plausibility  to  the 
oifensive  imputation  that  he  was  of  Irish  blood.  "  I  hap- 
pened," he  said,  with  a  bitterness  born  of  later  sufferings, 
"  by  a  perfect  accident  to  be  born  here,  and  thus  I  am  a 
Teague,  or  an  Irishman,  or  what  people  please."  Else- 
where he  claims  England  as  properly  his  own  country; 
"  although  I  happened  to  be  dropped  here,  and  was  a  year 
old  before  I  left  it  (Ireland),  and  to  my  sorrow  did  not  die 
before  I  came  back  to  it."  His  infancy  brought  fresh  griev- 
ances. He  was,  it  seems,  a  precocious  and  delicate  child, 
and  his  nurse  became  so  much  attached  to  him,  that  having 
to  return  to  her  native  Whitehaven,  she  kidnapped  the  year- 
old  infant  out  of  pure  affection.  "When  his  mother  knew 
her  loss  she  was  afraid  to  hazard  a  return  voyage  until 
the  child  was  stronger ;  and  he  thus  remained  nearly  three 
years  at  Whitehaven,  where  the  nurse  took  such  care  of 
his  education  that  he  could  read  any  chapter  in  the  Bible 
before  he  was  three  years  old.    His  return  must  have  been 


4  SWIFT.  [chap. 

speedily  followed  by  his  mother's  departure  for  her  native 
Leicester.  Her  sole  dependence,  it  seems,  was  an  annuity 
of  201.  a  year,  which  had  been  bought  for  her  by  her 
husband  upon  their  marriage.  Some  of  the  Swift  family 
seem  also  to  have  helped  her ;  but,  for  reasons  not  now 
discoverable,  she  found  Leicester  preferable  to  Dublin, 
even  at  the  price  of  parting  from  the  little  Jonathan. 
Godwin  took  him  off  her  hands  and  sent  him  to  Kil- 
kenny School  at  the  age  of  six,  and  from  that  early 
period  the  child  had  to  grow  up  as  virtually  an  orphan. 
His  mother  through  several  years  to  come  can  have  been 
little  more  than  a  name  to  him.  Kilkenny  School,  called 
the  "  Eton  of  Ireland,"  enjoyed  a  high  reputation.  Two 
of  Swift's  most  famous  contemporaries  were  educated 
there.  Congreve,  two  years  his  junior,  was  one  of  his 
schoolfellows,  and  a  warm  friendship  remained  when  both 
had  become  famous.  Fourteen  years  after  Swift  had  left 
the  school  it  was  entered  by  George  Berkeley,  destined  to 
win  a  fame  of  the  purest  and  highest  kind,  and  to  come 
into  a  strange  relationship  to  Swift.  It  would  be  vain  to 
ask  what  credit  may  be  claimed  by  Kilkenny  School  for 
thus  "  producing  "  (it  is  the  word  used  on  such  occasions) 
the  greatest  satirist,  the  most  brilliant  writer  of  comedies, 
and  the  subtlest  metaphysician  in  the  English  language. 
Our  knowledge  of  Swift's  experiences  at  this  period  is 
almost  confined  to  a  single  anecdote.  "I  remember,"  he 
says  incidentally  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Bolingbroke,  "  when  I 
was  a  little  boy,  I  felt  a  great  fish  at  the  end  of  my  line, 
which  I  drew  up  almost  on  the  ground ;  but  it  dropped  in, 
and  the  disappointment  vexes  me  to  this  very  day,  and  I 
believe  it  was  the  type  of  all  my  future  disappointments."  * 

'  Readers  may  remember  a  clever  adaptation  of  this  incident  in 
Lord  Lytton's  My  Novel. 


L]  EARLY  YEARS.  S 

Swift,  indeed,  was  still  in  the  schoolboy  stage,  according 
to  modern  ideas,  when  he  was  entered  at  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  on  the  same  day,  April  24,  1682,  with  a  cousin, 
Thomas  Swift.  Swift  clearly  found  Dublin  uncongenial ; 
though  there  is  still  a  wide  margin  for  uncertainty  as  to 
precise  facts.  His  own  account  gives  a  short  summary 
of  his  academic  history: 

"  By  the  ill-treatment  of  his  nearest  relations  "  (he  says) 
"he  was  so  discouraged  and  sunk  in  his  spirits  that  he 
too  much  neglected  his  academic  studies,  for  some  parts 
of  which  he  had  no  great  relish  by  nature,  and  turned  him- 
self to  reading  history  and  poetry,  so  that  when  the  time 
came  for  taking  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  although 
he  had  lived  with  great  regularity  and  due  observance  of 
the  statutes,  he  was  stopped  of  his  degree  for  dulness  and 
insufficiency ;  and  at  last  hardly  admitted  in  a  manner  little 
to  his  credit,  which  is  called  in  that  college  speciali  gratiay 
In  a  report  of  one  of  the  college  examinations,  discovered 
by  Mr.  Forster,  he  receives  a  bene  for  his  Greek  and  Latin, 
a  male  for  his  "  philosophy,"  and  a  negligenter  for  his  the- 
ology. The  "philosophy"  was  still  based  upon  the  old 
scholasticism,  and  proficiency  was  tested  by  skill  in  the  arts 
of  syllogistic  argumentation.  Sheridan,  son  of  Swift's  in- 
timate friend,  was  a  student  at  Dublin  shortly  before  the 
Dean's  loss  of  intellectual  power ;  the  old  gentleman  would 
naturally  talk  to  the  lad  about  his  university  recollections; 
and,  according  to  his  hearer,  remembered  with  singular  ac- 
curacy the  questions  upon  which  he  had  disputed,  and  re- 
peated the  arguments  which  had  been  used,  "  in  syllogistic 
form."  Swift  at  the  same  time  declared,  if  the  report  be 
accurate,  that  he  never  had  the  patience  to  read  the  pages 
of  Smiglecius,  Burgersdicius,  and  the  other  old-fashioned 
logical  treatises.     When  told  that  they  taught  the  art  of 


6  SWIFT.  [chap. 

reasoning,  he  declared  that  he  could  reason  very  well 
without  it.  He  acted  upon  this  principle  in  his  exer- 
cises, and  left  the  Proctor  to  reduce  his  argument  to  the 
proper  form.  In  this  there  is  probably  a  substratum  of 
truth.  Swift  can  hardly  be  credited,  as  Berkeley  might 
have  been,  with  a  precocious  perception  of  the  weakness 
of  the  accepted  system.  When  young  gentlemen  are 
plucked  for  their  degree,  it  is  not  generally  because  they 
are  in  advance  of  their  age.  But  the  aversion  to  meta- 
physics was  characteristic  of  Swift  through  life.  Like 
many  other  people  who  have  no  turn  for  such  specula- 
tions, he  felt  for  them  a  contempt  which  may  perhaps 
be  not  the  less  justified  because  it  does  not  arise  from 
familiarity.  The  bent  of  his  mind  was  already  sufficiently 
marked  to  make  him  revolt  against  the  kind  of  mental 
food  which  was  most  in  favour  at  Dublin;  though  he 
seems  to  have  obtained  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  classics. 

Swift  cherished  through  life  a  resentment  against  most 
of  his  relations.  His  uncle  Godwin  had  undertaken  his 
education,  and  had  sent  him,  as  we  see,  to  the  best  places 
of  education  in  Ireland.  If  the  supplies  became  scanty,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  poor  Godwin  had  a  sufiicient  ex- 
cuse. Each  of  his  four  wives  had  brought  him  a  family 
— the  last  leaving  him  seven  sons;  his  fortunes  had  been 
dissipated,  chiefly,  it  seems,  by  means  of  a  speculation  in 
iron-works ;  and  the  poor  man  himself  seems  to  have  been 
failing,  for  he  "fell  into  a  lethargy"  in  1688,  surviving 
some  five  years,  like  his  famous  nephew,  in  a  state  of  im- 
becility. Decay  of  mind  and  fortune  coinciding  with  the 
demands  of  a  rising  family  might  certainly  be  some  apolo- 
gy for  the  neglect  of  one  amongst  many  nephews.  Swift 
did  not  consider  it  suflficient.  "Was  it  not  your  uncle 
Godwin,"  he  was  asked,  "  who  educated  you  ?"     "  Yes," 


m 


1.]  EARLY  YEARS.  7 

said  Swift,  after  a  pause ;  "  he  gave  me  the  education  of  a 
dog."  "  Then,"  answered  the  intrepid  inquirer,  "  you  have 
not  the  gratitude  of  a  dog."  And  perhaps  that  is  our  nat- 
ural impression.  Yet  we  do  not  know  enough  of  the  facts 
to  judge  with  confidence.  Swift,  whatever  his  faults,  was 
always  a  warm  and  faithful  friend ;  and  perhaps  it  is  the 
most  probable  conjecture  that  Godwin  Swift  bestowed  his 
charity  coldly  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  hurt  the  pride  of 
the  recipient.  In  any  case,  it  appears  that  Swift  showed 
his  resentment  in  a  manner  more  natural  than  reasonable. 
The  child  is  tempted  to  revenge  himself  by  knocking  his 
head  against  the  rock  which  has  broken  his  shins;  and 
with  equal  wisdom  the  youth  who  fancies  that  the  world 
is  not  his  friend  tries  to  get  satisfaction  by  defying  its 
laws.  Till  the  time  of  his  degree  (February,  1686),  Swift 
had  been  at  least  regular  in  his  conduct,  and  if  the  neglect 
of  his  relations  had  discouraged  his  industry,  it  had  not 
provoked  him  to  rebellion.  During  the  three  years  which 
followed  he  became  more  reckless.  He  was  still  a  mere 
lad,  just  eighteen  at  the  time  of  his  degree,  when  he  fell 
into  more  or  less  irregular  courses.  In  rather  less  than 
two  years  he  was  under  censure  for  seventy  weeks.  The 
offences  consisted  chiefly  in  neglect  to  attend  chapel  and 
in  "  town-haunting,"  or  absence  from  the  nightly  roll-call. 
Such  offences  perhaps  appear  to  be  more  flagrant  than 
they  really  are  in  the  eyes  of  college  authorities.  Twice 
he  got  into  more  serious  scrapes.  He  was  censured  (March 
16, 1687),  along  with  his  cousin,  Thomas  Swift,  and  several 
others,  for  "  notorious  neglect  of  duties  and  frequenting 
*the  town.'"  And  on  his  twenty-first  birthday  (Nov.  30, 
1688)  he'  was  punished,  along  with  several  others,  for  ex- 

*  Possibly  this  was  his  cousin  Thomas,  but  the  probabilities  are 
clearly  in  favour  of  Jonathan. 


6  SWIFT.  [chap. 

citing  domestic  dissensions,  despising  the  warnings  of  the 
junior  Dean,  and  insulting  that  official  by  contemptuous 
words.  The  offenders  were  suspended  from  their  degrees, 
and  inasmuch  as  Swift  and  another  were  the  worst  offend- 
ers (adhuc  intolerahilius  se  gesserant),  they  were  sentenced 
to  ask  pardon  of  the  Dean  upon  their  knees  publicly  in 
the  hall.  Twenty  years  later^  Swift  revenged^  himself 
upon  Owen  Lloyd,  the  junior  Dean,  by  accusing  him  of 
infamous  servility.  For  the  present  Swift  was  probably 
reckoned  amongst  the  black  sheep  of  the  academic  flock." 
This  censure  came  at  the  end  of  Swift's  university  ca- 
reer. The  three  last  years  had  doubtless  been  years  of 
discouragement  and  recklessness.  That  they  were  also 
years  of  vice  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word  is  not  proved ; 
nor,  from  all  that  we  know  of  Swift's  later  history,  does 
it  seem  to  be  probable.  There  is  no  trace  of  anything 
like  licentious  behaviour  in  his  whole  career.  It  is  easier 
to  believe  with  Scott  that  Swift's  conduct  at  this  period 
might  be  fairly  described  in  the  words  of  Johnson  when 
speaking  of  his  own  university  experience:  "Ah,  sir,  I 
was  mad  and  violent.  It  was  bitterness  that  they  mistook 
for  frolic.  I  was  miserably  poor,  and  I  thought  to  fight 
my  way  by  my  literature  and  my  wit;  so  I  disregarded 
all  power  and  all  authority."  Swift  learnt  another  and  a 
more  profitable  lesson  in  these  years.  It  is  indicated  in 
an  anecdote  which  rests  upon  tolerable  authority.     One 

^  In  the  Sliort  Character  of  TJiomas,  Earl  of  Wharton. 

'  It  will  be  seen  that  I  accept  Dr.  Barrett's  statements,  Earlier 
Part  of  the  Life  of  Swift,  pp.  13,  14.  His  arguments  seem  to  me 
sufficiently  clear  and  conclusive,  and  they  are  accepted  by  Monck 
Mason,  though  treated  contemptuously  by  Mr.  Forster,  p.  34.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  agree  with  Mr.  Forster  that  Swift's  complicity  in 
the  Terrce  Filim  oration  is  not  proved,  though  it  is  not  altogether 
improbable. 


1.]  EARLY  YEARS.  9 

day,  as  he  was  gazing  in  melancholy  mood  from  his  win^ 
dow,  his  pockets  at  their  lowest  ebb,  he  saw  a  sailor  star- 
ing about  in  the  college  courts.  How  happy  should  I  be, 
he  thought,  if  that  man  was  inquiring  for  me  with  a  pres- 
ent from  my  cousin  Willoughby !  The  dream  came  true. 
The  sailor  came  to  his  rooms  and  produced  a  leather  bag, 
sent  by  his  cousin  from  Lisbon,  with  more  money  than 
poor  Jonathan  had  ever  possessed  in  his  life.  The  sailor 
refused  to  take  a  part  of  it  for  his  trouble,  and  Jonathan 
hastily  crammed  the  money  into  his  pocket,  lest  the  man 
should  repent  of  his  generosity.  From  that  time  forward, 
he  added,  he  became  a  better  economist. 

The  Willoughby  Swift  here  mentioned  was  the  eldest 
son  of  Godwin,  and  now  settled  in  the  English  factory  at 
Lisbon.  Swift  speaks  warmly  of  his  "  goodness  and  gen- 
erosity" in  a  letter  written  to  another  cousin  in  1694. 
Some  help,  too,  was  given  by  his  uncle  William,  who  was 
settled  at  Dublin,  and  whom  he  calls  the  "  best  of  his  re- 
lations." In  one  way  or  another  he  was  able  to  keep  his 
head  above  water ;  and  he  was  receiving  an  impression 
which  grew  with  his  growth.  The  misery  of  dependence 
was  burnt  into  his  soul.  To  secure  independence  became 
his  most  cherished  wish;  and  the  first  condition  of  inde- 
pendence was  a  rigid  practice  of  economy.  We  shall  see 
hereafter  how  deeply  this  principle  became  rooted  in  his 
mind ;  here  I  need  only  notice  that  it  is  the  lesson  which 
poverty  teaches  to  none  but  men  of  strong  character. 

A  catastrophe  meanwhile  was  approaching,  which  in- 
volved the  fortunes  of  Swift  along  with  those  of  nations. 
James  IL  had  been  on  the  throne  for  a  year  when  Swift 
took  his  degree.  At  the  time  when  Swift  was  ordered  to 
kneel  to  the  junior  Dean,  William  was  in  England,  and 
James  preparing  to  fly  from  Whitehall.     The  revolution 


10  SWIFT.  [chap. 

of  1688  meant  a  breaking  up  of  the  very  foundations  of 
political  and  social  order  in  Ireland.  At  the  end  of  1688 
a  stream  of  fugitives  was  pouring  into  England,  whilst 
the  English  in  Ireland  were  gathering  into  strong  places, 
abandoning  their  property  to  the  bands  of  insurgent 
peasants. 

Swift  fled  with  his  fellows.  Any  prospects  which  he 
may  have  had  in  Ireland  were  ruined  with  the  ruin  of  his 
race.  The  loyalty  of  his  grandfather  to  a  king  who  pro- 
tected the  national  Church  was  no  precedent  for  loyalty 
to  a  king  who  was  its  deadliest  enemy.  Swift,  a  Church- 
man to  the  backbone,  never  shared  the  leaning  of  many 
Anglicans  to  the  exiled  Stuarts ;  and  his  early  experience 
was  a  pretty  strong  dissuasive  from  Jacobitism.  He  took 
refuge  with  his  mother  at  Leicester.  Of  that  mother  we 
hear  less  than  we  could  wish ;  for  all  that  we  hear  suggests 
a  brisk,  wholesome,  motherly  body.  She  lived  cheerfully 
and  frugally  on  her  pittance ;  rose  early,  worked  with  her 
needle,  read  her  book,  and  deemed  herself  to  be  "  rich  and 
happy  " — on  twenty  pounds  a  year.  A  touch  of  her  son's 
humour  appears  in  the  only  anecdote  about  her.  She 
came,  it  seems,  to  visit  her  son  in  Ireland  shortly  after  he 
had  taken  possession  of  Laracor,  and  amused  herself  by 
persuading  the  woman  with  whom  she  lodged  that  Jona- 
than was  not  her  son  but  her  lover.  Her  son,  though 
separated  from  her  through  the  years  in  which  filial  affec- 
tion is  generally  nourished,  loved  her  with  the  whole 
strength  of  his  nature ;  he  wrote  to  her  frequently,  took 
pains  to  pay  her  visits  "  rarely  less  than  once  a  year ;" 
and  was  deeply  aftected  by  her  death  in  1710.  "I  have 
now  lost,"  he  wrote  in  his  pocket-book, "  the  last  barrier 
between  me  and  death.  God  grant  I  may  be  as  well  pre- 
pared for  it  as  I  confidently  believe  her  to  have  been  !     If 


I.]  EARLY  YEARS.  11 

the  way  to  Heaven  be  through  piety,  truth,  justice,  and 
charity,  she  is  tliere." 

The  good  lady  had,  it  would  seem,  some  little  anxieties 
of  the  common  kind  about  her  son.  She  thought  him  m 
danger  of  falling  in  love  with  a  certain  Betty  Jones,  who, 
however,  escaped  the  perils  of  being  wife  to  a  man  of 
genius,  and  married  an  innkeeper.  Some  forty  years 
later,  Betty  Jones,  now  Perkins,  appealed  to  Swift  to  help 
her  in  some  family  diflSculties,  and  Swift  was  ready  to 
"  sacrifice  five  pounds"  for  old  acquaintance'  sake.  Other 
vague  reports  of  Swift's  attentions  to  women  seem  to  have 
been  flying  about  in  Leicester.  Swift,  in  noticing  them, 
tells  his  correspondent  that  he  values  "  his  own  entertain- 
ment beyond  the  obloquy  of  a  parcel  of  wretched  fools," 
which  he  "  solemnly  pronounces  "  to  be  a  fit  description  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Leicester.  He  had,  he  admits,  amused 
himself  with  flirtation ;  but  he  has  learnt  enough,  "  with- 
out going  half  a  mile  beyond  the  University,"  to  refrain 
from  thoughts  of  matrimony.  A  "  cold  temper  "  and  the 
absence  of  any  settled  outlook  are  suflScient  dissuasives. 
Another  phrase  in  the  same  letter  is  characteristic:  "A 
person  of  great  honour  in  Ireland  (who  was  pleased  to 
stoop  so  low  as  to  look  into  my  mind)  used  to  tell  me  that 
my  mind  was  like  a  conjured  spirit,  that  would  do  mis- 
chief if  I  did  not  give  it  employment."  He  allowed  him- 
self these  little  liberties,  he  seems  to  infer,  by  way  of  dis- 
traction for  his  restless  nature.  But  some  more  serious 
work  was  necessary,  if  he  was  to  win  the  independence  so 
earnestly  desired,  and  to  cease  to  be  a  burden  upon  his 
mother.     Where  was  he  to  look  for  help  ? 


CHAPTER  II. 

MOOR   PARK    AND    KILROOT. 

How  was  this  "conjured  spirit"  to  find  occupation? 
The  proverbial  occupation  of  such  beings  is  to  cultivate 
despair  by  weaving  ropes  of  sand.  Swift  felt  himself 
strong ;  but  he  had  no  task  worthy  of  his  strength:  nor 
did  he  yet  know  precisely  where  it  lay :  he  even  fancied 
that  it  might  be  in  the  direction  of  Pindaric  Odes. 
Hitherto  his  energy  had  expended  itself  in  the  question- 
able shape  of  revolt  against  constituted  authority.  But  the 
revolt,  whatever  its  precise  nature,  had  issued  in  the  rooted 
determination  to  achieve  a  genuine  independence.^  The 
political  storm  which  had  for  the  time  crushed  the  whole 
social  order  of  Ireland  into  mere  chaotic  anarchy  had  left 
him  an  uprooted  waif  and  stray — a  loose  fragment  without 
any  points  of  attachment,  except  the  little  household  in 
Leicester.  His  mother  might  give  him  temporary  shelter, 
but  no  permanent  home.  If,  as  is  probable,  he  already 
looked  forward  to  a  clerical  career,  the  Church  to  which 
he  belonged  was,  for  the  time,  hopelessly  ruined,  and  in 
danger  of  being  a  persecuted  sect. 

In  this  crisis  a  refuge  was  offered  to  him.  Sir  William 
Temple  was  connected,  in  more  ways  than  one,  with  the 
Swifts.  He  was  the  son  of  Sir  John  Temple,  Master  of 
the  Rolls  in  Ireland,  who  had  been  a  friend  of  Godwin 
Swift.    Temple  himself  had  lived  in  Ireland  in  early  days, 


CHAP.  ii.J  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  18 

and  had  known  the  Swift  family.  His  wife  was  in  some 
way  related  to  Swift's  mother ;  and  he  was  now  in  a  po- 
sition to  help  the  young  man.  Temple  is  a  remarkable 
figure  amongst  the  statesmen  of  that  generation.  There 
is  somethimg  more  modem  about  him  than  belongs  to  his 
century.  A  man  of  cultivated  taste  and  cosmopolitan  train- 
ing, he  had  the  contempt  of  enlightened  persons  for  the  fa- 
naticisms of  his  times.  He  was  not  the  man  to  suffer  per- 
secution, with  Baxter,  for  a  creed,  or  even  to  lose  his  head, 
with  Russell,  for  a  party.  Yet,  if  he  had  not  the  faith 
which  animates  enthusiasts,  he  sincerely  held  political  the- 
ories— a  fact  sufficient  to  raise  him  above  the  thorough- 
going cynics  of  the  court  of  the  Restoration.  His  sense  of 
honour,  or  the  want  of  robustness  in  mind  and  tempera- 
ment, kept  him  aloof  from  the  desperate  game  in  which 
the  politicians  of  the  day  staked  their  lives,  and  threw  away 
their  consciences  as  an  incumbrance.  Good  fortune  threw 
him  into  the  comparatively  safe  line  of  diplomacy,  for 
which  his  natural  abilities  fitted  him.  Good  fortune,  aided 
by  discernment,  enabled  him  to  identify  himself  with  the 
most  respectable  achievements  of  our  foreign  policy.  He 
had  become  famous  as  the  chief  author  of  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance, and  the  promoter  of  the  marriage  of  William  and 
Mary.  He  had  ventured  far  enough  into  the  more  troub- 
lous element  of  domestic  politics  to  invent  a  highly  ap- 
plauded constitutional  device  for  smoothing  the  relations 
between  the  crown  and  Parliament.  Like  other  such  de- 
vices it  went  to  pieces  at  the  first  contact  with  realities. 
Temple  retired  to  cultivate  his  garden  and  write  elegant 
memoirs  and  essays,  and  refused  all  entreaties  to  join  again 
in  the  rough  struggles  of  the  day.  Associates,  made  of 
sterner  stuff,  probably  despised  him ;  but  from  their  own, 
that  is,  the  selfish  point  of  view,  he  was  perhaps  entitled  to 


14  SWIFT.  [chap. 

laugh  last.  He  escaped  at  least  with  unblemished  honour, 
and  enjoyed  the  cultivated  retirement  which  statesmen  so 
often  profess  to  desire,  and  so  seldom  achieve.  In  private 
he  had  many  estimable  qualities.  He  was  frank  and  sen- 
sitive; he  had  won  diplomatic  triumphs  by  disregarding 
the  pedantry  of  official  rules ;  and  he  had  an  equal,  though 
not  an  equally  intelligent,  contempt  for  the  pedantry  of 
the  schools.  His  style,  though  often  slipshod,  often  an- 
ticipates the  pure  and  simple  English  of  the  Addison  pe- 
riod, and  delighted  Charles  Lamb  by  its  delicate  flavour  of 
aristocratic  assumption.  He  had  the  vanity  of  a  "  person 
of  quality  " — a  lofty,  dignified  air,  which  became  his  flow- 
ing periwig,  and  showed  itself  in  his  distinguished  feat- 
ures. But  in  youth  a  strong  vein  of  romance  displa3^ed 
itself  in  his  courtship  of  Lady  Temple,  and  he  seems  to 
have  been  correspondingly  worshipped  by  her  and  his 
sister,  Lady  Giffard. 

The  personal  friendship  of  William  could  not  induce 
Temple  to  return  to  public  life.  His  only  son  took  office, 
but  soon  afterwards  killed  himself  from  a  morbid  sense  of 
responsibility.  Temple  retired  finally  to  Moor  Park,  near 
Farnham,  in  Surrey ;  and  about  the  same  time  received 
Swift  into  his  family.  Long  afterwards  John  Temple,  Sir 
William's  nephew,  who  had  quarrelled  with  Swift,  gave  an 
obviously  spiteful  account  of  the  terms  of  this  engagement. 
Swift,  he  said,  was  hired  by  Sir  William  to  read  to  him 
and  be  his  amanuensis,  at  the  rate  of  201.  a  year  and  his 
board;  but  "Sir  William  never  favoured  him  with  his 
conversation,  nor  allowed  him  to  sit  down  at  table  with 
him."  The  authority  is  bad,  and  we  must  be  guided  by 
rather  precarious  inferences  in  picturing  this  important 
period  of  Swift's  career.  The  raw  Irish  student  was 
probably  awkward,  and  may  have  been  disagreeable  in 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  15 

some  matters.  Forty  years  later  we  find,  from  his  cor- 
respondence with  Gay  and  the  Duchess  of  Queensberry, 
that  his  views  as  to  the  distribution  of  functions  between 
knives  and  forks  were  lamentably  unsettled;  and  it  is 
probable  that  he  may  in  his  youth  have  been  still  more 
heretical  as  to  social  conventions.  There  were  more  serious 
difficulties.  The  difference  which  separated  Swift  from 
Temple  is  not  easily  measurable.  How  can  we  exaggerate 
the  distance  at  which  a  lad,  fresh  from  college  and  a  re- 
mote provincial  society,  would  look  up  to  the  distinguished 
diplomatist  of  sixty,  who  had  been  intimate  with  the  two 
last  kings,  and  was  still  the  confidential  friend  of  the  reign- 
ing king,  who  had  been  an  actor  in  the  greatest  scenes, 
not  only  of  English  but  of  European  history ;  who  had 
been  treated  with  respect  by  the  ministers  of  Louis  XIV., 
and  in  whose  honour  bells  had  been  rung  and  b^quets 
set  forth  as  he  passed  through  the  great  Continental  cities  ? 
Temple  might  have  spoken  to  him,  without  shocking 
proprieties,  in  terms  which,  if  I  may  quote  the  proverbial 
phrase,  would  be  offensive  "from  God  x\lmighty  to  a 
black  beetle." 

"  Shall  I  believe  a  spirit  so  divine 
Was  cast  in  the  same  mould  with  mine  ?" 

is  Swift's  phrase  about  Temple,  in  one  of  his  first  crude 
poems.  We  must  not  infer  that  circumstances  which 
would  now  be  offensive  to  an  educated  man — the  seat  at 
the  second  table,  the  predestined  congeniality  to  the  ladies'- 
maid  of  doubtful  reputation — would  have  been  equally 
offensive  then.  So  long  as  dependence  upon  patrons  was 
a  regular  incident  of  the  career  of  a  poor  scholar,  the  cor- 
responding regulations  would  be  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Swift  was  not  necessarily  more  degraded  by  bc- 
2 


16  SWIFT.  [chap. 

ing  a  dependent  of  Temple's  than  Locke  by  a  similar  po- 
sition in  Shaftesbury's  family.  But  it  is  true  that  such  a 
position  must  always  be  trying,  as  many  a  governess  has 
felt  in  more  modern  days.  The  position  of  the  educated 
dependent  must  always  have  had  its  specific  annoyances. 
At  this  period,  when  the  relation  of  patron  and  client  was 
being  rapidly  modified  or  destroyed,  the  compact  would 
be  more  than  usually  trying  to  the  power  of  forbearance 
and  mutual  kindliness  of  the  parties  concerned.  The  rela- 
tion between  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and  the  old  college 
friend  who  became  his  chaplain  meant  good  feeling  on 
both  sides.  When  poor  Parson  Supple  became  chaplain 
to  Squire  Western,  and  was  liable  to  be  sent  back  from 
London  to  Basingstoke  in  search  of  a  forgotten  tobacco- 
box.  Supple  must  have  parted  with  all  self-respect.  Swift 
has  incidentally  given  his  own  view  of  the  case  in  his 
Essay  on  the  Fates  of  Clergymen.  It  is  an  application  of 
one  of  his  favourite  doctrines — the  advantage  possessed  by 
mediocrity  over  genius  in  a  world  so  largely  composed  of 
fools.  Eugenio,  who  represents  Jonathan  Swift,  fails  in 
life  because  as  a  wit  and  a  poet  he  has  not  the  art  of  win- 
ning patronage.  Corusodes,  in  whom  we  have  a  partial 
likeness  to  Tom  Swift,  Jonathan's  college  contemporary, 
and  afterwards  the  chaplain  of  Temple,  succeeds  by  servile 
respectability.  He  never  neglected  chapel  or  lectures:  he 
never  looked  into  a  poem :  never  made  a  jest  himself,  or 
laughed  at  the  jests  of  others ;  but  he  managed  to  insinuate 
himself  into  the  favour  of  the  noble  family  where  his  sis- 
ter was  a  waiting-woman ;  shook  hands  with  the  butler, 
taught  the  page  his  catechism ;  was  sometimes  admit- 
ted to  dine  at  the  steward's  table;  was  admitted  to  read 
prayers,  at  ten  shillings  a  month ;  and,  by  winking  at  his 
patron's  attentions  to  his  sister,  gradually  crept  into  better 


11.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  17 

appointments,  married  a  citizen's  widow,  and  is  now  fast 
mounting  towards  the  top  of  the  ladder  ecclesiastical. 

Temple  was  not  the  man  to  demand  or  reward  services 
so  base  as  those  attributed  to  Corusodes.  Nor  does  it 
seem  that  he  would  be  wanting  in  the  self-respect  which 
prescribes  due  courtesy  to  inferiors,  though  it  admits  of  a 
strict  regard  for  the  ceremonial  outworks  of  social  dignity. 
He  would  probably  neither  permit  others  to  take  liberties 
nor  take  them  himself.  If  Swift's  self-esteem  suffered,  it 
would  not  be  that  he  objected  to  offering  up  the  con- 
ventional incense,  but  that  he  might  possibly  think  that, 
after  all,  the  idol  was  made  of  rather  inferior  clay.  Tem- 
ple, whatever  his  solid  merits,  was  one  of  the  showiest 
statesmen  of  the  time ;  but  there  was  no  man  living  with 
a  keener  eye  for  realities  and  a  more  piercing  insight  into 
shams  of  all  kinds  than  this  raw  secretary  from  Ireland. 
In  later  life  Swift  frequently  expressed  his  scorn  for  the 
mysteries  and  the  "refinements"  (to  use  his  favourite 
phrase)  by  which  the  great  men  of  the  world  conceal  the 
low  passions  and  small  wisdom  actually  exerted  in  affairs 
of  state.  At  times  he  felt  that  Temple  was  not  merely 
claiming  the  outward  show  of  respect,  but  setting  too  high 
a  value  upon  his  real  merits.  So  when  Swift  was  at  the 
full  flood  of  fortune,  when  prime  ministers  and  secretaries 
of  state  were  calling  him  Jonathan,  or  listening  submis- 
sively to  his  lectures  on  "  whipping-day,"  he  reverts  to  his 
early  experience.  *'  I  often  think,"  he  says,  when  speak- 
ing of  his  own  familiarity  with  St.  John,  "  what  a  splutter 
Sir  William  Temple  makes  about  being  Secretary  of  State." 
And  this  is  a  less  respectful  version  of  a  sentiment  ex- 
pressed a  year  before :  "  I  am  thinking  what  a  veneration 
we  had  for  Sir  W.  Temple  because  he  might  have  been  Sec- 
retary of  State  at  fifty,  and  here  is  a  young  fellow  hardly 


18  SWIFT.  [chap. 

thirty  in  that  employment."  In  the  interval  there  is  an- 
other characteristic  outburst :  "  I  asked  Mr.  Secretary  (St. 
John)  what  the  devil  ailed  him  on  Sunday,"  and  warned 
him  "  that  I  would  never  be  treated  like  a  schoolboy  ;  that 
I  had  felt  too  much  of  that  in  my  life  already  (meaning  Sir 
W.  Temple) ;  that  I  expected  every  great  minister  who 
honoured  me  with  his  acquaintance,  if  he  heard  and  saw 
anything  to  my  disadvantage,  would  let  me  know  in  plain 
words,  and  not  put  me  in  pain  to  guess  by  the  change  or 
coldness  of  his  countenance  and  behaviour."  The  day  af- 
ter this  effusion  he  maintains  that  he  was  right  in  what 
he  said :  "  Don't  you  remember  how  I  used  to  be  in  pain 
when  Sir  W.  Temple  would  look  cold  and  out  of  humour 
for  three  or  four  days,  and  I  used  to  suspect  a  hundred 
reasons?  I  have  plucked  up  my  spirits  since  then;  faith, 
he  spoiled  a  fine  gentleman."  And  yet,  if  Swift  some- 
times thought  Temple's  authority  oppressive,  he  was  ready 
to  admit  his  substantial  merits.  Temple,  he  says,  in  his 
rough  marginalia  to  Burnet's  History,  "  was  a  man  of 
sense  and  virtue ;"  and  the  impromptu  utterance  probably 
reflects  his  real  feeling. 

The  year  after  his  first  arrival  at  Temple's,  Swift  went 
back  to  Ireland  by  advice  of  physicians,  who  "  weakly  im- 
agined that  his  native  air  might  be  of  some  use  to  recover 
his  health."  It  was  at  this  period,  we  may  note  in  passing, 
that  Swift  began  to  suffer  from  a  disease  which  tormented 
him  through  life.  Temple  sent  with  him  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Sir  Robert  Southwell,  Secretary  of  State  in 
Ireland,  which  gives  an  interesting  account  of  their  pre- 
vious relations.  Swift,  said  Temple,  had  lived  in  his 
house,  read  for  him,  written  for  him,  and  kept  his  small 
accounts.  lie  knew  Latin  and  Greek,  and  a  little  French ; 
wrote  a  good  hand,  and  was  honest  and  diligent.     His 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  19 

whole  family  had  long  been  known  to  Temple,  who  would 
be  glad  if  Southwell  would  give  him  a  clerkship,  or  get 
him  a  fellowship  in  Trinity  College.  The  statement  of 
Swift's  qualifications  has  now  a  rather  comic  sound.  An 
applicant  for  a  desk  in  a  merchant's  office  once  com- 
mended himself,  it  is  said,  by  the  statement  that  his  style 
of  writinor  combined  scathino^  sarcasm  with  the  wildest 
flights  of  humour.  Swift  might  have  had  a  better  claim 
to  a  place  for  which  such  qualities  were  a  recommendation ; 
but  there  is  no  reason,  beyond  the  supposed  agreement  of 
fools  to  regard  genius  as  a  disadvantage  in  practical  life, 
to  suppose  that  Swift  was  deficient  in  humbler  attainments. 
Before  long,  however,  he  was  back  at  Moor  Park ;  and  a 
period  followed  in  which  his  discontent  with  the  position 
probably  reached  its  height.  Temple,  indeed,  must  have 
discovered  that  his  young  dependent  was  really  a  man  of 
capacity.  He  recommended  him  to  William.  In  1692 
Swift  went  to  Oxford,  to  be  admitted  ad  eundem,  and 
received  the  M.A.  degree;  and  Swift,  writing  to  thank 
his  uncle  for  obtaining  the  necessary  testimonials  from 
Dublin,  adds  that  he  has  been  most  civilly  received  at 
Oxford,  on  the  strength,  presumably,  of  Temple's  recom- 
mendation, and  that  he  is  not  to  take  orders  till  the  King 
gives  him  a  prebend.  He  suspects  Temple,  however,  of 
being  rather  backward  in  the  matter,  "  because  (I  sup- 
pose) he  believes  I  shall  leave  him,  and  (upon  some  ac- 
counts) he  thinks  me  a  little  necessary  to  him."  Wil- 
liam, it  is  said,  was  so  far  gracious  as  to  offer  to  make 
Swift  a  captain  of  horse,  and  instruct  him  in  the  Dutch 
mode  of  eating  asparagus.  By  this  last  phrase  hangs  an 
anecdote  of  later  days.  Faulkner,  the  Dublin  printer,  was 
dining  with  Swift,  and  on  asking  for  a  second  supply  of 
asparagus  was  told  by  the  Dean  to  finish  what  he  had  on 


20  SWIFT.  [chap. 

lus  plate.  "  What,  sir,  eat  my  stalks  ?"  "  Ay,  sir ;  King 
William  always  ate  his  stalks."  "  And  were  you,"  asked 
Faulkner's  hearer,  when  he  related  the  story,  "  were  you 
blockhead  enough  to  obey  him  ?"  "  Yes,"  replied  Faulk- 
ner, "  and  if  you  had  dined  with  Dean  Swift  tete-a-tete 
you  would  have  been  obliged  to  eat  your  stalks  too !" 
For  the  present  Swift  was  the  recipient  not  the  imposer 
of  stalks ;  and  was  to  receive  the  first  shock,  as  he  tells 
us,  that  helped  to  cure  him  of  his  vanity.  The  question  of 
the  Triennial  Bill  was  agitating  political  personages  in  the 
early  months  of  1693.  William  and  his  favourite  minis- 
ter, the  Earl  of  Portland,  found  their  Dutch  experience  in- 
sufficient to  guide  them  in  the  mysteries  of  English  con- 
stitutionalism. Portland  came  down  to  consult  Temple 
at  Moor  Park ;  and  Swift  was  sent  back  to  explain  to  the 
great  men  that  Charles  I.  had  been  ruined,  not  by  consent- 
ing to  short  Parliaments,  but  by  abandoning  the  right  to 
dissolve  Parliament.  Swift  says  that  he  was  "  well  versed 
in  English  history,  though  he  was  under  twenty-one  years 
old."  (He  was  really  twenty-five,  but  memory  naturally 
exaggerated  his  youthful ness.)  His  arguments,  however, 
backed  by  history,  failed  to  carry  conviction,  and  Swift 
had  to  unlearn  some  of  the  youthful  confidence  which 
assumes  that  reason  is  the  governing  force  in  this  world, 
and  that  reason  means  our  own  opinions.  That  so  young 
a  man  should  have  been  employed  on  such  an  errand 
shows  that  Temple  must  have  had  a  good  opinion  of  his 
capacities ;  but  his  want  of  success,  however  natural,  was 
felt  as  a  grave  discouragement. 

That  his  discontent  was  growing  is  clear  from  other 
indications.  Swift's  early  poems,  whatever  their  defects, 
have  one  merit  common  to  all  his  writings — the  merit  of 
a  thorough,  sometimes  an  appalling,  sincerity.    Two  poems 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  21 

which  begin  to  display  his  real  vigour  are  dated  at  the  end 
of  1693.  One  is  an  epistle  to  his  schoolfellow,  Congreve, 
expatiating,  as  some  consolation  for  the  cold  reception  of 
the  Double  Dealer^  upon  the  contemptible  nature  of  town 
critics.  Swift  describes,  as  a  type  of  the  whole  race,  a 
Farnham  lad  who  had  left  school  a  year  before,  and  had 
just  returned  a  "finished  spark"  from  London — 

"  Stock'd  with  the  latest  gibberish  of  the  town." 

This  wretched  little  fop  came  in  an  evil  hour  to  provoke 
Swift's  hate : 

"  My  hate,  whose  lash  just  Heaven  has  long  decreed 
Shall  on  a  day  make  sin  and  folly  bleed." 

And  he  already  applies  it  with  vigour  enough  to  show 
that  with  some  of  the  satirist's  power  he  has  also  the 
indispensable  condition  of  a  considerable  accumulation 
of  indignant  wrath  against  the  self-appointed  arbiters  of 
taste.  The  other  poem  is  more  remarkable  in  its  personal 
revelation.  It  begins  as  a  congratulation  to  Temple  on 
his  recovery  from  an  illness.  It  passes  into  a  description 
of  his  own  fate,  marked  by  singular  bitterness.  He  ad- 
dresses his  muse  as 

"  Malignant  goddess !  bane  to  my  repose, 
Thou  universal  cause  of  all  my  woes." 

She  is,  it  seems,  a  mere  delusive  meteor,  with  no  real  being 
of  her  own.     But,  if  real,  why  does  she  persecute  him  ? 

"  Wert  thou  right  woman,  thou  should'st  scorn  to  look 
On  an  abandon'd  wretch  by  hopes  forsook : 
Forsook  by  hopes,  ill  fortune's  last  relief, 
Assign'd  for  life  to  unremitting  grief ; 
For  let  Heaven's  wrath  enlarge  these  weary  days 
If  hope  e'er  dawns  the  smallest  of  its  rays." 


22  SWIFT.  [chap. 

And  he  goes  on  to  declare,  after  some  vigorous  lines : 

"  To  thee  I  owe  that  fatal  bent  of  mind, 
Still  to  unhappy,  restless  thoughts  inclined : 
To  thee  what  oft  I  vainly  strive  to  hide, 
That  scorn  of  fools,  by  fools  mistook  for  pride ; 
From  thee,  whatever  virtue  takes  its  rise, 
Grows  a  misfortune,  or  becomes  a  vice." 

The  sudden  gush  as  of  bitter  waters  into  the  dulcet, 
insipid  current  of  conventional  congratulation  gives  addi- 
tional point  to  the  sentiment.  Swift  expands  the  last 
couplet  into  a  sentiment  which  remained  with  him  through 
life.  It  is  a  blending  of  pride  and  remorse ;  a  regretful 
admission  of  the  loftiness  of  spirit  which  has  caused  his 
misfortunes ;  and  we  are  puzzled  to  say  whether  the  pride 
or  the  remorse  be  the  most  genuine.  For  Swift  always 
unites  pride  and  remorse  in  his  consciousness  of  his  own 
virtues. 

The  "restlessness"  avowed  in  these  verses  took  the 
practical  form  of  a  rupture  with  Temple.  In  his  auto- 
biographical fragment  he  says  that  he  had  a  scruple  of 
entering  into  the  Church  merely  for  support,  and  Sir  Wil- 
liam, then  being  Master  of  the  Rolls  in  Ireland,^  offered 
him  an  employ  of  about  1201.  a  year  In  that  office  ;  where- 
upon Mr.  Swift  told  him  that  since  he  had  now  an  oppor- 
tunity of  living  without  being  driven  into  the  Church  for 
a  maintenance,  he  was  resolved  to  go  to  Ireland  and  take 
holy  orders.  If  the  scruple  seems  rather  finely  spun  for 
Swift,  the  sense  of  the  dignity  of  his  profession  is  thor- 
oughly characteristic.  Nothing,  however,  is  more  decep- 
tive than  our  memory  of  the  motives  which  directed  dis- 
tant actions.  In  his  contemporary  letters  there  is  no  hint 
of  any  scruple  against  preferment  in  the  Church,  but  a  de- 
*  Temple  had  the  reversion  of  his  father's  office. 


i,.J  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  *         23 

cided  objection  to  insuflScient  preferment.  It  is  possible 
that  Swift  was  confusing  dates,  and  that  the  scruple  was 
quieted  when  he  failed  to  take  advantage  of  Temple's  in- 
terest with  Southwell.  Having  declined,  he  felt  that  he 
had  made  a  free  choice  of  a  clerical  career.  In  1692,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  expected  a  prebend  from  Temple's  influ- 
ence with  William.  But  his  doubts  of  Temple's  desire  or 
power  to  serve  him  were  confirmed.  In  June,  1694,  he 
tells  a  cousin  at  Lisbon :  "  I  have  left  Sir  W.  Temple  a 
month  ago,  just  as  I  foretold  it  you ;  and  everything  hap- 
pened exactly  as  I  guessed.  He  was  extremely  angry  I 
left  him ;  and  yet  would  not  oblige  himself  any  further 
than  upon  my  good  behaviour,  nor  would  promise  any- 
thing firmly  to  me  at  all ;  so  that  everybody  judged  I  did 
best  to  leave  him."  He  is  starting  in  four  days  for  Dub- 
lin, and  intends  to  be  ordained  in  September.  The  next 
letter  preserved  completes  the  story,  and  implies  a  painful 
change  in  this  cavalier  tone  of  injured  pride.  Upon  going 
to  Dublin,  Swift  had  found  that  some  recommendation 
from  Temple  would  be  required  by  the  authorities.  He 
tried  to  evade  the  requirement,  but  was  forced  at  last  to 
write  a  letter  to  Temple,  which  nothing  but  necessity 
could  have  extorted.  After  explaining  the  case,  he  adds : 
"  The  particulars  expected  of  me  are  what  relates  to  morals 
and  learning,  and  the  reasons  of  quitting  your  honour's 
family ;  that  is,  whether  the  last  was  occasioned  by  any  ill 
actions.  They  are  all  left  entirely  to  your  honour's  mercy, 
though  in  the  past  I  think  I  cannot  reproach  myself  any 
farther  than  for  infirmities.  This,"  he  adds,  "  is  all  I  dare 
beg  at  present  from  your  honour,  under  circumstances  of 
life  not  worth  your  regard ;"  and  all  that  is  left  him  to 
wish  ("  next  to  the  health  and  prosperity  of  your  honour's 
family ")  is  that  Heaven  will  show  him  some  day  the  op- 
2* 


24  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

portunity  of  making  his  acknowledgments  at  "  your  hon- 
our's" feet.  This  seems  to  be  the  only  occasion  on  which 
we  find  Swift  confessing  to  any  fault  except  that  of  being 
too  virtuous. 

The  apparent  doubt  of  Temple's  magnanimity  implied 
in  the  letter  was,  happily,  not  verified.  The  testimonial 
seems  to  have  been  sent  at  once.  Swift,  in  any  case,  was 
ordained  deacon  on  the  28th  of  October,  1694,  and  priest 
on  the  15th  of  January,  1695.  Probably  Swift  felt  that 
Temple  had  behaved  with  magnanimity,  and  in  any  case  it 
was  not  very  long  before  he  returned  to  Moor  Park,  lie 
had  received  from  Lord  Capel,  then  Lord  Deputy,  the  small 
prebend  of  Kilroot,  worth  about  100/.  a  year.  Little  is 
known  of  his  life  as  a  remote  country  clergyman,  except 
that  he  very  soon  became  tired  of  it.^  Swift  soon 
resigned  his  prebend  (in  March,  1698),  and  managed  to 
obtain  the  succession  for  a  friend  in  the  neighbourhood. 
But  before  this  (in  May,  1696)  he  had  returned  to  Moor 
Park.  He  had  grown  weary  of  a  life  in  a  remote  district, 
and  Temple  had  raised  his  offers.  lie  was  glad  to  be 
once  more  on  the  edge  at  least  of  the  great  world  in  which 
alone  could  be  found  employment  worthy  of  his  talents. 
One  other  incident,  indeed,  of  which  a  fuller  account  would 
be  interesting,  is  connected  with  this  departure.  On  the 
eve  of  his  departure  he  wrote  a  passionate  letter  to 
"  Varina,"  in  plain  English  Miss  Waring,  sister  of  an  old 
college  chum.  He  "solemnly  offers  to  forego  all"  (all 
his  English  prospects,  that  is)  "  for  her  sake."  He  does 
not  want  her  fortune;  she  shall  live  where  she  pleases, 

'  It  may  be  noticed,  in  illustration  of  the  growth  of  the  Swift 
legend,  that  two  demonstrably  false  anecdotes  —  one  imputing  a 
monstrous  crime,  the  other  a  romantic  piece  of  benevolence  to  Swift 
— refer  to  this  period. 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  25 

till  he  has  "  pushed  his  advancement "  and  is  in  a  position 
to  marry  her.  The  letter  is  full  of  true  lovers'  protesta- 
tions; reproaches  for  her  coldness;  hints  at  possible  causes 
of  jealousies ;  declarations  of  the  worthlessness  of  ambition 
as  compared  with  love;  and  denunciations  of  her  respect 
for  the  little  disguises  and  affected  contradictions  of  her 
sex,  infinitely  beneath  persons  of  her  pride  and  his  own ; 
paltry  maxims  calculated  only  for  the  '*  rabble  of  human- 
ity." "  By  heaven,  Varina,"  he  exclaims,  "  you  are  more 
experienced  and  have  less  virgin  innocence  than  I."  The 
answer  must  have  been  unsatisfactory ;  though,  from  ex- 
pressions in  a  letter  to  his  successor  to  the  prebend,  we 
see  that  the  affair  was  still  going  on  in  1699.  It  will 
come  to  light  once  more. 

Swift  was  thus  at  Moor  Park  in  the  summer  of  1696. 
He  remained  till  Temple's  death  in  January,  1699.  We 
hear  no  more  of  any  friction  between  Swift  and  his 
patron ;  and  it  seems  that  the  last  years  of  their  connex- 
ion passed  in  harmony.  Temple  was  growing  old;  his 
wife,  after  forty  years  of  a  happy  marriage,  had  died  dur- 
ing Swift's  absence  in  the  beginning  of  1695;  and  Tem- 
ple, though  he  seems  to  have  been  vigorous,  and  in  spite 
of  gout  a  brisk  walker,  was  approaching  the  grave.  He 
occupied  himself  in  preparing,  with  Swift's  help,  memoirs 
and  letters,  which  were  left  to  Swift  for  posthumous 
publication.  Swift's  various  irritations  at  Moor  Park 
have  naturally  left  a  stronger  impression  upon  his  history 
than  the  quieter  hours  in  which  worry  and  anxiety  might 
be  forgotten  in  the  placid  occupations  of  a  country  life. 
That  Swift  enjoyed  many  such  hours  is  tolerably  clear. 
Moor  Park  is  described  by  a  Swiss  traveller  who  visited 
it  about  1691^  as  the  "model  of  an  agreeable  retreat." 
^  M.  Maralt.    See  appendix  to  Courtenay's  Life  of  Temple. 


26  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Temple's  liouseliold  was  free  from  the  coarse  convivialities 
of  the  boozing  fox-hunting  squires ;  whilst  the  recollection 
of  its  modest  neatness  made  the  "  magnificent  palace  "  of 
Petworth  seem  pompous  and  overpowering.  Swift  him- 
self remembered  the  Moor  Park  gardens,  the  special  pride 
of  Temple's  retirement,  with  affection,  and  tried  to  imitate 
them  on  a  small  scale  in  his  own  garden  at  Laracor.  Moor 
Park  is  on  the  edge  of  the  great  heaths  which  stretch 
southward  to  Hindhead,  and  northward  to  Aldershot  and 
Chobham  Ridges.  Though  we  can  scarcely  credit  him 
with  a  modern  taste  in  scenery,  he  at  least  anticipated  the 
modern  faith  in  athletic  exercises.  According  to  Deane 
Swift,  he  used  to  ran  up  a  hill  near  Temple's  and  back 
again  to  his  study  every  two  hours,  doing  the  distance 
of  half  a  mile  in  six  minutes.  In  later  life  he  preached 
the  duty  of  walking  with  admirable  perseverance  to  his 
friends.  He  joined  other  exercises  occasionally.  "My 
Lord,"  he  says  to  Archbishop  King  in  1721,  "  I  row  after 
health  like  a  waterman,  and  ride  after  it  like  a  postboy, 
and  with  some  little  success."  But  he  had  the  character- 
istic passion  of  the  good  and  wise  for  walking.  lie  men- 
tions incidentally  a  walk  from  Farnham  to  London,  thirty- 
eight  miles;  and  has  some  association  with  the  Golden 
Farmer* — a  point  on  the  road  from  which  there  is  still 
one  of  the  loveliest  views  in  the  southern  counties,  across 
undulating  breadths  of  heath  and  meadow,  woodland  and 
down,  to  Windsor  Forest,  St.  George's  Hill,  and  the  chalk 
range  from  Guildford  to  Epsom.  Perhaps  he  might  have 
been  a  mountaineer  in  more  civilized  times ;  his  poem  on 
the  Carberry  rocks  seems  to  indicate  a  lover  of  such 
scenery ;  and  he  ventured  so  near  the  edge  of  the  cliff  upon 

*  The  public-house  at  the  point  thus  named  on  the  Ordnance  map 
is  now  (I  regret  to  say)  called  the  Jolly  Farmer. 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  27 

his  stomach,  that  his  servants  had  to  drag  him  back  by  his 
heels.  We  find  him  proposing  to  walk  to  Chester  at  the 
rate,  I  regret  to  say,  of  only  ten  miles  a  day.  In  such 
rambles,  we  are  told,  he  used  to  put  up  at  wayside  inns, 
where  "lodgings  for  a  penny"  were  advertised;  bribing 
the  maid  with  a  tester  to  give  him  clean  sheets  and  a  bed 
to  himself.  The  love  of  the  rough  humour  of  waggoners 
and  hostlers  is  supposed  to  have  been  his  inducement  to 
this  practice,  and  the  refjned  Orrery  associates  his  coarse- 
ness with  this  lamentable  practice;  but  amidst  the  roar 
of  railways  we  may  think  more  tolerantly  of  the  humours 
of  the  road  in  the  good  old  days,  when  each  village  had 
its  humours  and  traditions  and  quaint  legends,  and  when 
homely  maxims  of  unlettered  wisdom  were  to  be  picked 
up  at  rustic  firesides. 

Recreations  of  this  kind  were  a  relief  to  serious  study. 
In  Temple's  library  Swift  found  abundant  occupation,  "  I 
am  often,"  he  says,  in  the  first  period  of  his  residence, 
"two  or  three  months  without  seeing  anybody  besides 
the  family."  In  a  later  fragment,  we  find  him  living 
alone  "  in  great  state,"  the  cook  coming  for  his  orders  for 
dinner,  and  the  revolutions  in  the  kingdom  of  the  rooks 
amusing  his  leisure.  The  results  of  his  studies  will  be 
considered  directly.  A  list  of  books  read  in  1697  gives 
some  hint  of  their  general  nature.  They  are  chiefly 
classical  and  liistorical.  He  read  Virgil,  Homer,  Horace, 
Lucretius,  Cicero's  Epistles,  Petronius  Arbiter,  ^lian, 
Lucius  Florus,  Herbert's  Henry  VIII,,  Sleidan's  Com- 
mentaries,  Council  of  Trent,  Camden's  Elizabeth,  Burnet's 
History  of  the  Reformation,  Voiture,  Blackmore's  Prince 
Arthur,  Sir  J.  Davis's  poem  of  The  Soul,  and  two  or  three 
travels,  besides  Cyprian  and  Ircnaeus.  We  may  note  the 
absence  of  any  theological  reading,  except  in  the  form  of 


28  SWIFT.  [chap. 

ecclesiastical  history ;  nor  does  Swift  study  philosophy,  of 
which  he  seems  to  have  had  a  sufficient  dose  in  Dublin. 
History  seems  always  to  have  been  his  favourite  study,  and 
it  would  naturally  have  a  large  part  in  Temple's  library. 

One  matter  of  no  small  importance  to  Swift  remains 
to  be  mentioned.  Temple's  family  included  other  depen- 
dents besides  Swift.  The  "  little  parson  cousin,"  Tom 
Swift,  whom  his  great  relation  always  mentions  with 
contempt,  became  chaplain  to  Temple.  Jonathan's  sister 
was  for  some  time  at  Moor  Park.  But  the  inmates  of  the 
family  most  interesting  to  us  were  a  Rebecca  Dingley — 
who  was  in  some  way  related  to  the  family — and  Esther 
Johnson.  Esther  Johnson  was  the  daughter  of  a  merchant 
of  respectable  family  who  died  young.  Her  mother  was 
known  to  Lady  Giffard,  Temple's  attached  sister;  and 
after  her  widowhood  went  with  her  two  daughters  to  live 
with  the  Temples.  Mrs.  Johnson  lived  as  servant  or  com- 
panion to  Lady  Giffard  for  many  years  after  Temple's 
death ;  and  little  Esther,  a  remarkably  bright  and  pretty 
child,  was  brought  up  in  the  family,  and  received  under 
Temple's  will  a  sufficient  legacy  for  her  support.  It  was, 
of  course,  guessed  by  a  charitable  world  that  she  was  a 
natural  child  of  Sir  William's ;  but  there  seems  to  be  no 
real  ground  for  the  hypothesis.*  She  was  born,  as  Swift 
tells  us,  on  March  13,  1681 ;  and  was,  therefore,  a  little 
over  eight  when  Swift  first  came  to  Temple,  and  fifteen 
when  he  returned  from  Kilroot."     About  this  age,  he  tells 

^  The  most  direct  statement  to  this  effect  ^as  made  in  an  article 
in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  175Y.  It  professes  to  speak  with  au- 
thority, but  includes  such  palpable  blunders  as  to  carry  little  weight. 

*  I  am  not  certain  whether  this  means  1681  or  1681-82.  I  have 
assumed  the  former  date  in  mentioning  Stella's  age ;  but  the  other 
is  equally  possible. 


11.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  29 

us,  she  got  over  an  infantile  delicacy,  "  grew  into  perfect 
health,  and  was  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful, 
graceful,  and  agreeable  young  women  in  London.  Her 
hair  was  blacker  than  a  raven,  and  every  feature  of  her 
face  in  perfection."  Her  conduct  and  character  were 
equally  remarkable,  if  we  may  trust  the  tutor  who  taught 
her  to  write,  guided  her  education,  and  came  to  regard  her 
with  an  affection  which  was  at  once  the  happiness  and  the 
misery  of  his  life. 

Temple  died  January  26,  1699  ;  and  "with  him,"  said 
Swift  at  the  time,  "  all  that  v^as  good  and  amiable  among 
men."  The  feeling  was  doubtless  sincere,  though  Swift, 
when  moved  very  deeply,  used  less  conventional  phrases. 
He  was  thrown  once  more  upon  the  world.  The  expectations 
of  some  settlement  in  life  had  not  been  realized.  Temple 
had  left  him  100/.,  the  advantage  of  publishing  his  post- 
humous works,  which  might  ultimately  bring  in  200/. 
more,  and  a  promise  of  preferment  from  the  King.  Swift 
had  lived  long  enough  upon  the  "chameleon's  food." 
His  energies  were  still  running  to  waste ;  and  he  suffered 
the  misery  of  a  weakness  due,  not  to  want  of  power,  but 
want  of  opportunity.  His  sister  writes  to  a  cousin  that 
her  brother  had  lost  his  best  friend,  who  had  induced 
him  to  give  up  his  Irish  preferment  by  promising  prefer- 
ment in  England,  and  had  died  before  the  promise  had 
been  fulfilled.  Swift  was  accused  of  ingratitude  by  Lord 
Palmerston,  Temple's  nephew,  some  thirty-five  years  later. 
In  reply,  he  acknowledged  an  obligation  to  Temple  for 
the  recommendation  to  William  and  the  legacy  of  his 
papers ;  but  he  adds  :  "  I  hope  you  will  not  charge  my 
living  in  his  family  as  an  obligation  ;  for  I  was  educated  to 
little  purpose  if  I  retired  to  his  house  for  any  other  motives 
than  the  benefit  of  his  conversation  and  advice,  and  the 


so  SWIFT.  [chap. 

opportunity  of  pursuing  my  studies.  For,  being  born  to 
no  fortune,  I  was  at  his  death  as  far  to  seek  as  ever ;  and 
perhaps  you  will  allow  that  I  was  of  some  use  to  him." 
Swift  seems  here  to  assume  that  his  motives  for  living 
with  Temple  are  necessarily  to  be  estimated  by  the  results 
which  he  obtained.  But,  if  he  expected  more  than  he 
got,  he  does  not  suggest  any  want  of  good-will.  Temple 
had  done  his  best ;  William's  neglect  and  Temple's  death 
had  made  good-will  fruitless.  The  two  might  cry  quits ; 
and  Swift  set  to  work,  not  exactly  with  a  sense  of  injury, 
but  probably  with  a  strong  feeling  that  a  large  portion 
of  his  life  had  been  wasted.  To  Swift,  indeed,  misfort- 
une and  injury  seem  equally  to  have  meant  resentment, 
whether  against  the  fates  or  some  personal  object. 

One  curious  document  must  be  noted  before  consider- 
ing the  writings  which  most  fully  reveal  the  state  of 
Swift's  mind.  In  the  year  1699  he  wrote  down  some 
resolutions,  headed  "When  I  come  to  be  old."  They  are 
for  the  most  part  pithy  and  sensible,  if  it  can  ever  be  sen- 
sible to  make  resolutions  for  behaviour  in  a  distant  future. 
Swift  resolves  not  to  marry  a  young  woman,  not  to  keep 
young  company  unless  they  desire  it,  not  to  repeat  stories, 
not  to  listen  to  knavish,  tattling  servants,  not  to  be  too 
free  of  advice,  not  to  brag  of  former  beauty  and  favour 
with  ladies,  to  desire  some  good  friends  to  inform  him 
when  he  breaks  these  resolutions,  and  to  reform  accord- 
ingly ;  and,  finally,  not  to  set  up  for  observing  all  these 
rules,  for  fear  he  should  observe  none.  These  resolutions 
are  not  very  original  in  substance  (few  resolutions  are), 
though  they  suggest  some  keen  observation  of  his  elders ; 
but  one  is  more  remarkable :  "  Not  to  be  fond  of  chil- 
dren, or  let  them  come  near  me  hardly^  The  words  in 
italics  are  blotted  out  by  a  later  possessor  of  the  paper, 


II.]  MOOR  PARK  AND  KILROOT.  81 

shocked,  doubtless,  at  the  harshness  of  the  sentiment. 
"  We  do  not  fortify  ourselves  with  resolutions  against 
what  we  dislike,"  says  a  friendly  commentator,  "  but 
against  what  we  feel  in  our  weakness  we  have  reason  to 
believe  we  are  really  too  much  inclined  to."  Yet  it  is 
strange  that  a  man  should  regard  the  purest  and  kindliest 
of  feelings  as  a  weakness  to  which  he  is  too  much  in- 
clined. No  man  had  stronger  affections  than  Swift;  no 
man  suffered  more  agony  when  they  were  wounded ;  but 
in  his  agony  he  would  commit  what  to  most  men  would 
seem  the  treason  of  cursing  the  affections  instead  of  sim- 
ply lamenting  the  injury,  or  holding  the  affection  itself 
to  be  its  own  sufficient  reward.  The  intense  personality 
of  the  man  reveals  itself  alternately  as  selfishness  and  as 
"altruism."  He  grappled  to  his  heart  those  whom  he 
really  loved  "  as  with  hoops  of  steel ;"  so  firmly  that  they 
became  a  part  of  himself ;  and  that  he  considered  himself 
at  liberty  to  regard  his  love  of  friends  as  he  might  regard 
a  love  of  wine,  as  something  to  be  regretted  when  it  was 
too  strong  for  his  own  happiness.  The  attraction  was  in- 
tense, but  implied  the  absorption  of  the  weaker  nature 
into  his  own.  His  friendships  w^ere  rather  annexations 
than  alliances.  The  strongest  instance  of  this  character- 
istic was  in  his  relations  to  the  charming  girl  who  must 
have  been  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  this  strange,  and 
unconsciously  prophetic,  resolution. 


CHAPTER    III. 

EARLY    WRITINGS. 

Swift  came  to  Temple's  house  as  a  raw  student.  He  left 
it  as  the  author  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  satires  ever 
written.  His  first  efforts  had  been  unpromising  enough. 
Certain  Pindaric  Odes,  in  which  the  youthful  aspirant 
imitated  the  still  popular  model  of  Cowley,  are  even  comi- 
cally prosaic.  The  last  of  them,  dated  1691,  is  addressed 
to  a  queer  Athenian  Society,  promoted  by  a  John  Dun- 
ton,  a  speculative  bookseller,  whose  Life  and  Errors  is 
still  worth  a  glance  from  the  curious.  The  Athenian  So- 
ciety was  the  name  of  John  Dunton  himself,  and  two  or 
three  collaborators  who  professed  in  the  Athenian  Met-- 
cury  to  answer  queries  ranging  over  the  whole  field  of 
human  knowledge.  Temple  was  one  of  their  patrons,  and 
Swift  sent  them  a  panegyrical  ode,  the  merits  of  which 
are  sufficiently  summed  up  by  Dryden's  pithy  criticism: 
"  Cousin  Swift,  you  will  never  be  a  poet."  Swift  disliked 
and  abused  Drydcn  ever  afterwards,  though  he  may  have 
had  better  reasons  for  his  enmity  than  the  child's  dislike 
to  bitter  medicine.  Later  poems,  the  Epistle  to  Congreve 
and  that  to  Temple  already  quoted,  show  symptoms  of 
growing  power  and  a  clearer  self-recognition.  In  Swift's 
last  residence  with  Temple  he  proved  unmistakably  that 
he  had  learnt  the  secret  often  so  slowly  revealed  to  great 
writers,  the  secret  of  his  real  strength.     The  Tale  of  a 


CHAP.  III.]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  -  33 

Tub  was  written  about  1696;  part  of  it  appears  to  have 
been  seen  at  Kilroot  by  his  friend,  Waring,  Varina's 
brother;  the  Battle  of  the  Books  was  written  in  1697. 
It  is  a  curious  proof  of  Swift's  indifference  to  a  literary 
reputation  that  both  works  remained  in  manuscript  till 
1704.  The  "little  parson  cousin,"  Tom  Swift,  ventured 
some  kind  of  claim  to  a  share  in  the  authorship  of  the 
Tale  of  a  Tub.  Swift  treated  this  claim  with  the  utmost 
contempt,  but  never  explicitly  claimed  for  himself  the 
authorship  of  what  some  readers  hold  to  be  his  most 
powerful  work. 

The  Battle  of  the  Books,  to  which  we  may  first  attend, 
sprang  out  of  the  famous  controversy  as  to  the  relative 
merits  of  the  ancients  and  moderns,  which  began  in  France 
with  Perrault  and  Fontenelle;  which  had  been  set  going 
in  England  by  Sir  W.  Temple's  essay  upon  ancient  and 
modern  learning  (1692),  and  which  incidentally  led  to  the 
warfare  between  Bentley  and  Wotton  on  one  side,  and 
Boyle  and  his  Oxford  allies  on  the  other.  A  full  account 
of  this  celebrated  discussion  may  be  found  in  Professor 
Jebb's  Bentley ;  and,  as  Swift  only  took  the  part  of  a 
light  skirmisher,  nothing  more  need  be  said  of  it  in  this 
place.  One  point  alone  is  worth  notice.  The  eagerness 
of  the  discussion  is  characteristic  of  a  time  at  which  the 
modern  spirit  was  victoriously  revolting  against  the  an- 
cient canons  of  taste  and  philosophy.  At  first  sight  we 
might,  therefore,  expect  the  defenders  of  antiquity  to  be 
on  the  side  of  authority.  In  fact,  however,  the  argument, 
as  Swift  takes  it  from  Temple,  is  reversed.  Temple's  the- 
ory, so  far  as  he  had  any  consistent  theory,  is  indicated  in 
the  statement  that  the  moderns  gathered  "  all  their  learn- 
ing from  books  in  the  universities."  Learning,  he  sug- 
gests, may  weaken  invention ;  and  people  who  trust  to  the 


34  SWIFT.  [chap. 

charity  of  others  will  always  be  poor.  Swift  accepts  and 
enforces  this  doctrine.  The  Battle  of  the  Books  is  an  ex- 
pression of  that  contempt  for  pedants  which  he  had  learnt 
in  Dublin,  and  which  is  expressed  in  the  ode  to  the  Athe- 
nian Society.  Philosophy,  he  tells  us  in  that  precious  pro- 
duction, "  seems  to  have  borrowed  some  ungrateful  taste  of 
doubts,  impertinence,  and  niceties  from  every  age  through 
which  it  passed  "  (this,  I  may  observe,  is  verse),  and  is  now 
a  "  medley  of  all  ages,"  "  her  face  patched  over  with  mod- 
ern pedantry."  The  moral  finds  a  more  poetical  embodi- 
ment in  the  famous  apologue  of  the  Bee  and  the  Spider 
in  the  Battle  of  the  Books.  The  bee  had  got  itself  entan- 
gled in  the  spider's  web  in  the  library,  whilst  the  books 
were  beginning  to  wrangle.  The  two  have  a  sharp  dis- 
pute, which  is  summed  up  by  -^sop  as  arbitrator.  The 
spider  represents  the  moderns,  who  spin  their  scholastic 
pedantry  out  of  their  own  insides;  whilst  the  bee,  like 
the  ancients,  goes  direct  to  nature.  The  moderns  produce 
nothing  but  "  wrangling  and  satire,  much  of  a  nature  with 
the  spider's  poison,  which,  however  they  pretend  to  spit 
wholly  out  of  themselves,  is  improved  by  the  same  arts,  by 
feeding  upon  the  insects  and  vermin  of  the  age."  We, 
the  ancients, "  profess  to  nothing  of  our  own  beyond  our 
wings  and  our  voice :  that  is  to  say,  our  flights  and  our 
language.  For  the  rest,  whatever  we  have  got  has  been 
by  infinite  labour  and  research,  and  ranging  through  every 
corner  of  nature ;  the  difference  is  that,  instead  of  dirt 
and  poison,  we  have  rather  chosen  to  fill  our  hives  with 
honey  and  wax,  thus  furnishing  mankind  with  the  two 
noblest  of  things,  which  are  sweetness  and  light." 

The  Homeric  battle  which  follows  is  described  with  in- 
finite spirit.  Pallas  is  the  patron  of  the  ancients,  whilst 
Momus  undertakes  the  cause  of  the  moderns,  and  appeals 


iii.J  EARLY  WRITINGS.  86 

for  help  to  the  malignant  deity  Criticism,  who  is  found  in 
her  den  at  the  top  of  a  snowy  mountain,  extended  upon 
the  spoils  of  numberless  half-devoured  volumes.  By  her, 
as  she  exclaims  in  the  regulation  soliloquy,  children  be- 
come wiser  than  their  parents,  beaux  become  politicians, 
and  schoolboys  judges  of  philosophy.  She  flies  to  her 
darling  Wotton,  gathering  up  her  person  into  an  octavo 
compass;  her  body  grows  white  and  arid,  and  splits  in 
pieces  with  dryness;  a  concoction  of  gall  and  soot  is 
strewn  in  the  shape  of  letters  upon  her  person ;  and  so 
she  joins  the  moderns,  "  undistinguishable  in  shape  and 
dress  from  the  divine  Bentley,  Wotton's  dearest  friend." 
It  is  needless  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  fight  which 
follows;  it  is  enough  to  observe  that  Virgil  is  encoun- 
tered by  his  translator  Dryden  in  a  helmet  "  nine  times 
too  large  for  the  head,  which  appeared  situate  far  in  the 
hinder  part,  even  like  the  lady  in  the  lobster,  or  like  a 
mouse  under  a  canopy  of  state,  or  like  a  shrivelled  beau 
within  the  penthouse  of  a  modern  periwig ;  and  the  voice 
was  suited  to  the  visage,  sounding  weak  and  remote ;"  and 
that  the  book  is  concluded  by  an  episode,  in  which  Bent- 
ley  and  Wotton  try  a  diversion  and  steal  the  armour  of 
Phalaris  and  ^sop,  but  are  met  by  Boyle,  clad  in  a  suit 
of  armour  given  him  by  all  the  gods,  who  transfixes 
them  on  his  spear  like  a  brace  of  woodcocks  on  an  iron 
skewer. 

The  raillery,  if  taken  in  its  critical  aspect,  recoils  upon 
the  author.  Dryden  hardly  deserves  the  scorn  of  Virgil ; 
and  Bentley,  as  we  know,  made  short  work  of  Phalaris 
and  Boyle.  But  Swift  probably  knew  and  cared  little  for 
the  merits  of  the  controversy.  He  expresses  his  contempt 
with  characteristic  vigour  and  coarseness;  and  our  pleas- 
ure in  his  display  of  exuberant  satirical  power  is  not  in- 


m  SWIFT.  [chap. 

jured  by  his  obvious  misconception  of  the  merits  of  the 
case.  The  unflagging  spirit  of  the  writing,  the  fertility 
and  ingenuity  of  the  illustrations,  do  as  much  as  can  be 
done  to  give  lasting  vitality  to  what  is  radically  (to  my 
taste  at  least)  a  rather  dreary  form  of  wit.  The  Battle 
of  the  Books  is  the  best  of  the  travesties.  Nor  in  the  brill- 
iant assault  upon  great  names  do  we  at  present  see  any- 
thing more  than  the  buoyant  consciousness  of  power,  com- 
mon in  the  unsparing  judgments  of  youth,  nor  edged  as 
yet  by  any  real  bitterness.  Swift  has  found  out  that  the 
world  is  full  of  humbugs;  and  goes  forth  liewing  and 
hacking  with  superabundant  energy,  not  yet  aware  that 
he  too  may  conceivably  be  a  fallible  being,  and  still  less 
that  the  humbugs  may  some  day  prove  too  strong  for 
him. 

The  same  qualities  are  more  conspicuous  in  the  far 
greater  satire,  the  Tale  of  a  Tub.  It  is  so  striking  a  per- 
formance that  Johnson,  who  cherished  one  of  his  stubborn 
prejudices  against  Swift,  doubted  whether  Swift  could 
have  written  it.  "  There  is  in  it,"  he  said,  "  such  a  vigour 
of  mind,  such  a  swarm  of  thoughts,  so  much  of  nature, 
and  art,  and  life."  The  doubt  is  clearly  without  the  least 
foundation,  and  the  estimate  upon  which  it  is  based  is 
generally  disputed.  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  has  certainly  not 
achieved  a  reputation  equal  to  that  of  Gulliver^s  Travels^ 
to  the  merits  of  which  Johnson  was  curiously  blind.  Yet 
I  think  that  there  is  this  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of 
Johnson's  theory,  namely,  that  Swift's  style  reaches  its 
highest  point  in  the  earlier  work.  There  is  less  flagging ; 
a  greater  fulness  and  pressure  of  energetic  thought;  a 
power  of  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head  at  the  first  blow, 
which  has  declined  in  the  work  of  his  maturer  years,  when 
life  was  weary   and  thoujjht   intermittent.     Swift  seeni'^ 


ui.]  EAKLY  WRITINGS.  87 

to  have  felt  this  himself.  In  the  twilight  of  his  intellect 
he  was  seen  turning  over  the  pages  and  murmuring  to 
himself,  "  Good  God,  what  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote 
that  book!"  In  an  apology  (dated  1709)  he  makes  a 
statement  which  may  help  to  explain  this  fact.  "The 
author,"  he  says,  "was  then  (1696)  young,  his  invention 
at  the  height,  and  his  reading  fresh  in  his  head.  By  the 
assistance  of  some  tliinking  and  much  conversation,  he 
had  endeavoured  to  strip  himself  of  as  many  prejudices 
as  he  could."  He  resolved,  as  he  adds,  "  to  proceed  in  a 
manner  entirely  new ;"  and  he  afterwards  claims  in  the 
most  positive  terms  that  through  the  whole  book  (in- 
cluding both  the  tale  and  the  battle  of  the  books)  he  has 
not  borrowed  one  "single  hint  from  any  writer  in  the 
world."*  No  writer  has  ever  been  more  thoroughly  origi- 
nal than  Swift,  for  his  writings  are  simply  himself. 

The  Tale  of  a  Tub  is  another  challenge  thrown  down 
to  pretentious  pedantry.  The  vigorous,  self-confident  in- 
tellect has  found  out  the  emptiness  and  absurdity  of  a 
number  of  the  solemn  formulae  which  pass  current  in  the 
world,  and  tears  them  to  pieces  with  audacious  and  re- 
joicing energy.  He  makes  a  mock  of  the  paper  chains 
with  which  solemn  professors  tried  to  fetter  his  activity, 
and  scatters  the  fragments  to  the  four  winds  of  Heaven. 

*  Wotton  first  accused  Swift  of  borrowing  the  idea  of  the  battle 
from  a  French  book,  by  one  Coutray,  called  Histoire  Poetiqm  de 
la  Guerre  nouvellement  declaree  entre  les  Anciens  et  Modernes.  Swift 
declared  (I  have  no  doubt  truly)  that  he  had  never  seen  or  heard  of 
this  book.  But  Coutray,  like  Swift,  uses  the  scheme  of  a  mock 
Homeric  battle.  The  book  is  prose,  but  begins  with  a  poem.  The 
resemblance  is  much  closer  than  Mr.  Forster's  language  would  imply; 
but  I  agree  with  him  that  it  does  not  justify  Johnson  and  Scott  in 
regarding  it  as  more  than  a  natural  coincidence.  Every  detail  is 
different. 


38  SWIFT.  [chap. 

In  one  of  the  first  sections  he  announces  the  philosophy 
afterwards  expounded  by  Herr  Teufelsdrockh,  according 
to  which  "  man  himself  is  but  a  micro-coat ;"  if  one  of  the 
suits  of  clothes  called  animals  "be  trimmed  up  with  a 
gold  chain,  and  a  red  gown,  and  a  white  rod,  and  a  pert 
look,  it  is  called  a  Lord  Mayor ;  if  certain  ermines  and 
furs  be  placed  in  a  certain  position,  we  style  them  a  judge ; 
and  so  an  apt  conjunction  of  lawn  and  black  satin  we 
entitle  a  bishop."  Though  Swift  does  not  himself  de- 
velop this  philosophical  doctrine,  its  later  form  reflects 
light  upon  the  earlier  theory.  For,  in  truth.  Swift's 
teaching  comes  to  this,  that  the  solemn  plausibilities  of 
the  world  are  but  so  many  "shams"  —  elaborate  masks 
used  to  disguise  the  passions,  for  the  most  part  base 
and  earthly,  by  which  mankind  is  really  impelled.  The 
"digressions"  which  he  introduces  with  the  privilege  of 
a  humorist  bear  chiefly  upon  the  literary  sham.  He  falls 
foul  of  the  whole  population  of  Grub  Street  at  starting, 
and  (as  I  may  note  in  passing)  incidentally  gives  a  curious 
hint  of  his  authorship.  He  describes  himself  as  a  worn- 
out  pamphleteer  who  has  worn  his  quill  to  the  pith  in 
the  service  of  the  state:  "Fourscore  and  eleven  pamphlets 
have  I  writ  under  the  reigns  and  for  the  service  of  six- 
and-thirty  patrons."  Porson  first  noticed  that  the  same 
numbers  are  repeated  in  Gulliver's  Travels;  Gulliver  is 
fastened  with  "fourscore  and  eleven  chains"  locked  to 
his  left  leg  "  with  six-and-thirty  padlocks."  Swift  makes 
the  usual  onslaught  of  a  young  author  upon  the  critics, 
with  more  than  the  usual  vigour,  and  carries  on  the  war 
against  Bentley  and  his  ally  by  parodying  Wotton's  re- 
marks upon  the  ancients.  He  has  discovered  many  omis- 
sions in  Homer,  "  who  seems  to  have  read  but  very  su- 
pei*ficially  cither  Scndivogus,  Behmcn,  or  Anthroposophia 


in.]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  39 

Magiay^  Homer,  too,  never  mentions  a  saveall ;  and  has 
a  still  worse  fault — his  "gross  ignorance  in  the  common 
laws  of  this  realm,  and  in  the  doctrine  as  well  as  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  England  " — defects,  indeed,  for  which  he 
has  been  justly  censured  by  Wotton.  Perhaps  the  most 
vigorous  and  certainly  the  most  striking  of  these  digres- 
sions is  that  upon  "the  original  use  and  improvement  of 
madness  in  a  commonwealth."  Just  in  passing,  as  it  were. 
Swift  gives  the  pith  of  a  whole  system  of  misanthropy, 
though  he  as  yet  seems  to  be  rather  indulging  a  play  of 
fancy  than  expressing  a  settled  conviction.  Happiness,  he 
says,  is  a  "perpetual  possession  of  being  well  deceived." 
The  wisdom  which  keeps  on  the  surface  is  better  than 
that  which  persists  in  oflBciously  prying  into  the  under- 
lying reality.  "Last  week  I  saw  a  woman  flayed,"  he 
observes,  "and  you  will  hardly  believe  how  much  it 
altered  her  person  for  the  worse."  It  is  best  to  be 
content  with  patching  up  the  outside,  and  so  assuring 
the  "serene,  peaceful  state"  —  the  sublimest  point  of 
felicity  —  "  of  being  a  fool  amongst  knaves."  He  goes 
on  to  tell  us  how  useful  madmen  may  be  made:  how 
Curtius  may  be  regarded  equally  as  a  madman  and  a 
hero  for  his  leap  into  the  gulf;  how  the  raging,  blas- 
pheming, noisy  inmate  of  Bedlam  is  fit  to  have  a  regi- 
ment of  dragoons ;  and  the  bustling,  sputtering,  bawling 
madman  should  be  sent  to  Westminster  Hall;  and  the 
solemn  madman,  dreaming  dreams  and  seeing  best  in  the 
dark,  to  preside  over  a  congregation  of  Dissenters ;  and 
how  elsewhere  you  may  find   the  raw  material   of  the 

*  This  was  a  treatise  by  Thomas,  twin  brother  of  Henry  Vaughan, 
the  "  Silurist."     It  led  to  a  controversy  with  Henry  More.     Vaughan 
was  a  Rosicrucian.     Swift's  contempt  for  mysteries  is  characteristic. 
Sendivogus  was  a  famous  alchemist  (1566 — 1646). 
3 


40  SWIFT.  [chap. 

merchant,  the  courtier,  or  the  monarch.  We  are  all 
madmen,  and  happy  so  far  as  mad :  delusion  and  peace 
of  mind  go  together ;  and  the  more  truth  we  know,  the 
more  shall  we  recognize  that  realities  are  hideous.  Swift 
only  plays  with  his  paradoxes.  He  laughs  without  trou- 
bling himself  to  decide  whether  his  irony  tells  against  the 
theories  which  he  ostensibly  espouses,  or  those  which  he 
ostensibly  attacks.  But  he  has  only  to  adopt  in  serious- 
ness the  fancy  with  which  he  is  dallying,  in  order  to 
graduate  as  a  finished  pessimist.  These,  however,  are 
interruptions  to  the  main  thread  of  the  book,  which  is 
a  daring  assault  upon  that  serious  kind  of  pedantry 
which  utters  itself  in  theological  systems.  The  three 
brothers,  Peter,  Martin,  and  Jack,  represent,  as  we  all 
know,  the  Roman  Catholic,  the  Anglican,  and  the  Puri- 
tanical varieties  of  Christianity.  They  start  with  a  new 
coat  provided  for  each  by  their  father,  and  a  will  to 
explain  the  right  mode  of  wearing  it;  and  after  some 
years  of  faithful  observance  they  fall  in  love  with  the 
three  ladies  of  wealth,  ambition,  and  pride,  get  into  ter- 
ribly bad  ways,  and  make  wild  work  of  the  coats  and  the 
will.  They  excuse  themselves  for  wearing  shoulder-knots 
by  picking  the  separate  letters  S,  H,  and  so  forth,  out  of 
separate  words  in  the  will,  and  as  K  is  wanting,  discover 
it  to  be  synonymous  with  C.  They  reconcile  themselves 
to  gold  lace  by  remembering  that  when  they  were  boys 
they  heard  a  fellow  say  that  he  had  heard  their  father's 
man  say  that  he  would  advise  his  sons  to  get  gold  lace 
when  they  had  money  enough  to  buy  it.  Then,  as  the 
will  becomes  troublesome  in  spite  of  exegetical  ingenuity, 
the  eldest  brother  finds  a  convenient  codicil  which  can  be 
tacked  to  it,  and  will  sanction  a  new  fashion  of  flame-col- 
oured satin.    The  will  expressly  forbids  silver  fringe  on  the 


III.]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  41 

coats;  but  they  discover  that  the  word  meaning  silver 
fringe  may  also  signify  a  broomstick.  And  by  such 
devices  they  go  on  merrily  for  a  time,  till  Peter  sets  up 
to  be  the  sole  heir  and  insists  upon  the  obedience  of  his 
brethren.  His  performances  in  this  position  are  trying  to 
their  temper.  "  Whenever  it  happened  that  any  rogue  of 
Newgate  was  condemned  to  be  hanged,  Peter  would  offer 
him  a  pardon  for  a  certain  sum  of  money;  which,  when 
the  poor  caitiff  had  made  all  shifts  to  scrape  up  and  send, 
his  lordship  would  return  a  piece  of  paper  in  this  form : 

"  *  To  all  mayors,  sheriffs,  jailors,  constables,  bailiffs,  hang- 
men, &c. — Whereas  we  are  informed  that  A.  B.  remains  in 
the  hands  of  you  or  some  of  you,  under  the  sentence  of 
death :  We  will  and  command  you,  upon  sight  hereof,  to 
let  the  said  prisoner  depart  to  his  own  habitation,  whether 
he  stands  condemned  for  murder,  &c.,  &c.,  for  which  this 
shall  be  your  sufficient  warrant;  and  if  you  fail  hereof, 
God  damn  you  and  yours  to  all  eternity;  and  so  we  bid 
you  heartily  farewell. — Your  most  humble  man's  man, 
Emperor  Peter.' 

"The  wretches,  trusting  to  this,  lost  their  lives  and 
their  money  too."  Peter,  however,  became  outrageously 
proud.  He  has  been  seen  to  take  "three  old  high- 
crowned  hats  and  clap  them  all  on  his  head  three-storey 
high,  with  a  huge  bunch  of  keys  at  his  girdle,  and  an 
angling-rod  in  his  hand.  In  which  guise,  whoever  went 
to  take  him  by  the  hand  in  the  way  of  salutation,  Peter, 
with  much  grace,  like  a  well-educated  spaniel,  would  pre- 
sent them  with  his  foot ;  and  if  they  refused  his  civility, 
then  he  would  raise  it  as  high  as  their  chops,  and  give 
him  a  damned  kick  on  the  mouth,  which  has  ever  since 
been  called  a  salute." 

Peter  receives  his  brothers  at  dinner,  and  has  nothing 


42  SWIFT.  [chap. 

served  np  but  a  brown  loaf.  "Come,"  he  says,  "fall  on 
and  spare  not;  here  is  excellent  good  mutton,"  and  he 
helps  them  each  to  a  slice.  The  brothers  remonstrate, 
and  try  to  point  out  that  they  see  only  bread.  They 
argue  for  some  time,  but  have  to  give  in  to  a  conclusive 
argument.  "  'Look  ye,  gentlemen,'  cries  Peter,  in  a  rage, 
*to  convince  you  what  a  couple  of  blind,  positive,  igno- 
rant, wilful  puppies  you  are,  I  will  use  but  this  simple  ar- 
gument. By  G —  it  is  true,  good,  natural  mutton  as  any 
in  Leadenhall  Market;  and  G —  confound  you  both  eter- 
nally if  you  offer  to  believe  otherwise.'  Such  a  thunder- 
ing proof  as  this  left  no  further  room  for  objection ;  the 
two  unbelievers  began  to  gather  and  pocket  up  their  mis- 
take as  hastily  as  they  could,"  and  have  to  admit  besides 
that  another  large  dry  crust  is  true  juice  of  the  grape. 

The  brothers  Jack  and  Martin  afterwards  fall  out,  and 
Jack  is  treated  to  a  storm  of  ridicule  much  in  the  same 
vein  as  that  directed  against  Peter ;  and,  if  less  pointed, 
certainly  not  less  expressive  of  contempt.  I  need  not  fur- 
ther follow  the  details  of  what  Johnson  calls  this  "  wild 
book,"  which  is  in  every  page  brimful  of  intense  satirical 
power.  I  must,  however,  say  a  few  words  upon  a  matter 
which  is  of  great  importance  in  forming  a  clear  judgment 
of  Swift's  character.  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  was  universally 
attributed  to  Swift,  and  led  to  many  doubts  of  his  ortho- 
doxy and  even  of  his  Christianity.  Sharpe,  Archbishop  of 
York,  injured  Swift's  chances  of  preferment  by  insinuating 
such  doubts  to  Queen  Anne.  Swift  bitterly  resented  the 
imputation.  He  prefixed  an  apology  to  a  later  edition,  in 
which  he  admitted  that  he  had  said  some  rash  things ;  but 
declared  that  he  would  forfeit  his  life  if  any  one  opinion 
contrary  to  morality  or  religion  could  be  fairly  deduced 
from  the  book.     He  pointed  out  that  he  had  attacked  no 


Ill]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  48 

Anglican  doctrine.  His  ridicule  spares  Martin,  and  is 
pointed  at  Peter  and  Jack.  Like  every  satirist  who  ever 
wrote,  he  does  not  attack  the  use  but  the  abuse;  and  as 
the  Church  of  England  represents  for  him  the  purest  em- 
bodiment of  the  truth,  an  attack  upon  the  abuses  of  relig- 
ion meant  an  attack  upon  other  churches  only  in  so  far 
as  they  diverged  from  this  model.  Critics  have  accepted 
this  apology,  and  treated  poor  Queen  Anne  and  her  ad- 
visers as  representing  simply  the  prudery  of  the  tea-table. 
The  question,  to  my  thinking,  does  not  admit  of  quite  so 
simple  an  answer. 

If,  in  fact,  we  ask  what  is  the  true  object  of  Swift's  au- 
dacious satire,  the  answer  will  depend  partly  upon  our  own 
estimate  of  the  truth.  Clearly  it  ridicules  "  abuses ;"  but 
one  man's  use  is  another's  abuse,  and  a  dogma  may  ap- 
pear to  us  venerable  or  absurd  according  to  our  own  creed. 
One  test,  however,  may  be  suggested  which  may  guide  our 
decision.  Imagine  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  to  be  read  by  Bishop 
Butler  and  by  Voltaire,  who  called  Swift  a  Rabelais  per- 
fectionne.  Can  any  one  doubt  that  the  believer  would  be 
scandalized  and  the  scoffer  find  himself  in  a  thoroughly 
congenial  element  ?  AVould  not  any  believer  shrink  from 
the  use  of  such  weapons  even  though  directed  against  his 
enemies?  Scott  urges  that  the  satire  was  useful  to  the 
High  Church  party  because,  as  he  says,  it  is  important  for 
any  institution  in  Britain  (or  anywhere  else,  we  may  add) 
to  have  the  laughers  on  its  side.  But  Scott  was  too  saga- 
cious not  to  indicate  the  obvious  reply.  The  condition  of 
having  the  laughers  on  your  side  is  to  be  on  the  side  of 
the  laughers.  Advocates  of  any  serious  cause  feel  that 
there  is  a  danger  in  accepting  such  an  alliance.  The 
laughers  who  join  you  in  ridiculing  your  enemy  are  by 
no  means  pledged  to  refrain  from  laughing  in  turn  at  the 


44  SWIFT.  [chap. 

laugher.  When  Swift  had  ridiculed  all  the  Catholic  and 
all  the  Puritan  dogmas  in  the  most  unsparing  fashion, 
could  he  be  sure  that  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  would  es- 
cape scot-free?  The  Catholic  theory  of  a  Church  possess- 
ing divine  authority,  the  Puritan  theory  of  a  divine  voice 
addressing  the  individual  soul,  suggested  to  him,  in  their 
concrete  embodiments  at  least,  nothing  but  a  horse-laugh. 
Could  any  one  be  sure  that  the  Anglican  embodiment  of 
the  same  theories  might  not  be  turned  to  equal  account  by 
the  scoffer  ?  Was  the  true  bearing  of  Swift's  satire  in  fact 
limited  to  the  deviations  from  sound  Church  of  England 
doctrine,  or  might  it  not  be  directed  against  the  very  vital 
principle  of  the  doctrine  itself  ? 

Swift's  blindness  to  such  criticisms  was  thoroughly  char- 
acteristic. He  professes,  as  we  have  seen,  that  he  had  need 
to  clear  his  mind  of  real  prejudices.  He  admits  that  the 
process  might  be  pushed  too  far;  that  is,  that  in  abandon- 
ing a  prejudice  you  may  be  losing  a  principle.  In  fact, 
the  prejudices  from  which  Swift  had  sought  to  free  him- 
self-— and  no  doubt  with  great  success — were  the  prejudices 
of  other  people.  For  them  he  felt  unlimited  contempt. 
But  the  prejudice  which  had  grown  up  in  his  mind, 
strengthened  with  his  strength,  and  become  intertwined 
with  all  his  personal  affections  and  antipathies,  was  no 
longer  a  prejudice  in  his  eyes,  but  a  sacred  principle.  The 
intensity  of  his  contempt  for  the  follies  of  others  shut  his 
eyes  effectually  to  any  similarity  between  their  tenets  and 
his  own.  His  principles,  true  or  false,  were  prejudices  in 
the  highest  degree,  if  by  a  prejudice  we  mean  an  opinion 
cherished  because  it  has  somehow  or  other  become  ours, 
though  the  "  somehow  "  may  exclude  all  reference  to  rea- 
son. Swift  never  troubled  himself  to  assign  any  philo- 
sophical basis  for  his  doctrines ;  having,  indeed,  a  hearty 


III.]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  46 

contempt  for  philosophizing  in  general.  He  clung  to  the 
doctrines  of  his  Church,  not  because  he  could  give  abstract 
reasons  for  his  belief,  but  simply  because  the  Church  hap- 
pened to  be  his.  It  is  equally  true  of  all  his  creeds,  polit- 
ical or  theological,  that  he  loved  them  as  he  loved  his 
friends,  simply  because  they  had  become  a  part  of  him- 
self, and  were,  therefore,  identified  with  all  his  hopes,  am- 
bitions, and  aspirations,  public  or  private.  We  shall  see 
hereafter  how  fiercely  he  attacked  the  Dissenters,  and  how 
scornfully  he  repudiated  all  arguments  founded  upon  the 
desirability  of  union  amongst  Protestants.  To  a  calm 
outside  observer  differences  might  appear  to  be  superficial; 
but  to  him  no  difference  could  be  other  than  radical  and 
profound  which  in  fact  divided  him  from  an  antagonist. 
In  attacking  the  Presbyterians,  cried  more  temperate 
people,  you  are  attacking  your  brothers  and  your  own 
opinions.  No,  replied  Swift,  I  am  attacking  the  cor= 
ruption  of  my  principles;  hideous  caricatures  of  myself; 
caricatures  the  more  hateful  in  proportion  to  their  apparent 
likeness.  And  therefore,  whether  in  political  or  theologi- 
cal warfare,  he  was  sublimely  unconscious  of  the  possible 
reaction  of  his  arguments. 

Swift  took  a  characteristic  mode  of  showing  that  if  upon 
some  pomts  he  accidentally  agreed  with  the  unbeliever, 
it  was  not  from  any  covert  sympathy.  Two  of  his  most 
vigorous  pieces  of  satire  in  later  days  are  directed  against 
the  deists.  In  1708  he  published  an  Argument  to  prove 
that  the  abolishing  of  Christianity  in  England  may^  as 
things  now  stand,  he  attended  with  some  inconveniences, 
and  perhaps  not  produce  those  many  good  effects  proposed 
thereby.  And  ia  1713,  in  the  midst  of  his  most  eager 
political  warfare,  he  published  Mr.  Collins'' s  Discourse  of 
Freethinking,  put  into  plain  English,  by  way  of  abstract, 


46  SWIFT.  [chap. 

for  use  of  the  poor.  No  one  who  reads  these  pamphlets 
can  deny  that  the  keenest  satire  may  be  directed  against 
infidels  as  well  as  against  Christians.  The  last  is  an 
admirable  parody,  in  which  poor  Collins's  arguments  are 
turned  against  himself  with  ingenious  and  provoking  irony. 
The  first  is,  perhaps,  Swift's  cleverest  application  of  the 
same  method.  A  nominal  religion,  he  urges  gravely,  is  of 
some  use,  for  if  men  cannot  be  allowed  a  God  to  revile  or 
renounce,  they  will  speak  evil  of  dignities,  and  may  even 
come  to  "reflect  upon  the  ministry."  If  Christianity 
were  once  abolished,  the  wits  would  be  deprived  of  their 
favourite  topic.  "  Who  would  ever  have  suspected  Asgil 
for  a  wit  or  Toland  for  a  philosopher  if  the  inexhaustible 
stock  of  Christianity  had  not  been  at  hand  to  provide 
them  with  materials?"  The  abolition  of  Christianity, 
moreover,  may  possibly  bring  the  Church  into  danger,  for 
atheists,  deists,  and  Socinians  have  little  zeal  for  the  pres- 
ent ecclesiastical  establishment ;  and  if  they  once  get  rid  of 
Christianity,  they  may  aim  at  setting  up  Presbyterianisra. 
Moreover,  as  long  as  we  keep  to  any  religion,  we  do  not 
strike  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  The  freethinkers  consider 
that  all  the  parts  hold  together,  and  that  if  you  pull  out 
one  nail  the  whole  fabric  will  fall.  Which,  he  says,  was 
happily  expressed  by  one  who  heard  that  a  text  brought 
in  proof  of  the  Trinity  was  differently  read  in  some  an- 
cient manuscript ;  whereupon  he  suddenly  leaped  through 
a  long  sorites  to  the  logical  conclusion :  "  Why,  if  it  be 
as  you  say,  I  may  safely  ....  drink  on  and  defy  the 
parson." 

A  serious  meaning  underlies  Swift's  sarcasms.  Collins 
had  argued  in  defence  of  the  greatest  possible  freedom  of 
discussion,  and  tacitly  assumed  that  such  discussion  would 
lead  to  disbelief  of  Christianity.     Opponents  of  the  liberal 


iii.J  EARLY  WRITINGS.  47 

school  had  answered  by  claiming  his  first  principle  as 
their  own.  They  argued  that  religion  was  based  upon 
reason,  and  would  be  strengthened  instead  of  weakened 
by  free  inquiry.  Swift  virtually  takes  a  different  position. 
He  objects  to  freethinking  because  ordinary  minds  are 
totally  unfit  for  such  inquiries.  "  The  bulk  of  mankind," 
as  he  puts  it,  is  as  "  well  qualified  for  flymg  as  thinking ;" 
and  therefore  free-thought  would  lead  to  anarchy,  atheism, 
and  immorality,  as  liberty  to  fly  would  lead  to  a  breaking 
of  necks. 

Collins  rails  at  priests  as  tyrants  upheld  by  imposture. ^ 
Swift  virtually  replies  that  they  are  the  sole  guides  to 
truth  and  guardians  of  morality,  and  that  theology  should 
be  left  to  them,  as  medicine  to  physicians  and  law  to  law- 
yers. The  argument  against  the  abolition  of  Christianity 
takes  the  same  ground.  Religion,  however  little  regard 
is  paid  to  it  in  practice,  is,  in  fact,  the  one  great  security 
for  a  decent  degree  of  social  order;  and  the  rash  fools 
who  venture  to  reject  what  they  do  not  understand  are 
public  enemies  as  well  as  ignorant  sciolists. 

The  same  view  is  taken  in  Swift's  sermons.  He  said 
of  himself  that  he  could  only  preach  political  pamphlets. 
Several  of  the  twelve  sermons  preserved  are  in  fact  directly 
aimed  at  some  of  the  political  and  social  grievances  which 
he  was  habitually  denouncing.  If  not  exactly  "pam- 
phlets," they  are  sermons  in  aid  of  pamphlets.  Others 
are  vigorous  and  sincere  moral  discourses.  One  alone 
deals  with  a  purely  theological  topic :  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  His  view  is  simply  that  "  men  of  wicked  lives 
would  be  very  glad  if  there  were  no  truth  in  Christianity 
at  all."  They  therefore  cavil  at  the  mysteries  to  find  some 
excuse  for  giving  up  the  whole.  He  replies  in  effect  that 
there  must  be  mystery,  though  not  contradiction,  every- 
3* 


48  SWIFT.  [ciiAP. 

where,  and  that  if  we  do  not  accept  humbly  what  is  taught 
in  the  Scriptures,  we  must  give  up  Christianity,  and  con- 
sequently, as  he  holds,  all  moral  obligation,  at  once.  The 
cavil  is  merely  the  pretext  of  an  evil  conscience.  Swift's 
religion  thus  partook  of  the  directly  practical  nature  of 
his  whole  character.  He  was  absolutely  indifferent  to 
speculative  philosophy.  He  was  even  more  indifferent  to 
the  mystical  or  imaginative  aspects  of  religion.  He  loved 
downright  concrete  realities,  and  was  not  the  man  to  lose 
himself  in  an  Oh,  altitudo  !  or  in  any  train  of  thought  or 
emotion  not  directly  bearing  upon  the  actual  business  of 
the  world.  Though  no  man  had  more  pride  in  his  order 
or  love  of  its  privileges,  Swift  never  emphasized  his  pro- 
fessional character.  He  wished  to  be  accepted  as  a  man 
of  the  world  and  of  busmess.  He  despised  the  unpracti- 
cal and  visionary  type,  and  the  kmd  of  religious  utterance 
congenial  to  men  of  that  type  was  abhorrent  to  him.  He 
shrank  invariably  too  from  any  display  of  his  emotion,  and 
would  have  felt  the  heartiest  contempt  for  the  senti- 
mentalism  of  his  day.  At  once  the  proudest  and  most 
sensitive  of  men,  it  was  his  imperative  instinct  to  hide 
his  emotions  as  much  as  possible.  In  cases  of  great  ex- 
citement he  retired  into  some  secluded  corner,  where,  if 
he  was  forced  to  feel,  he  could  be  sure  of  hiding  his 
feelings.  He  always  masks  his  strongest  passions  under 
some  ironical  veil,  and  thus  practised  what  his  friends 
regarded  as  an  inverted  hypocrisy.  Delany  tells  us  that 
he  stayed  for  six  months  in  Swift's  house  before  discover- 
ing that  the  Dean  always  read  prayers  to  his  servants  at  a 
fixed  hour  in  private.  A  deep  feeling  of  solemnity  showed 
itself  in  his  manner  of  performing  public  religious  exer- 
cises ;  but  Delany,  a  man  of  a  very  different  temperament, 
blames  his  friend  for  carrying  his  reserve  in  all  such  mat- 


J 


III.]  EARLY  WRITINGS.  49 

ters  to  extremes.  In  certain  respects  Swift  was  ostenta- 
tious enough;  but  this  intense  dislike  to  wearing  his 
heart  upon  Iiis  sleeve,  to  laying  bare  the  secrets  of  his 
affections  before  unsympathetic  eyes,  is  one  of  his  most 
indelible  characteristics.  Swift  could  never  have  felt  the 
slightest  sympathy  for  the  kind  of  preacher  who  courts 
applause  by  a  public  exhibition  of  intimate  joys  and  sor- 
rows; and  was  less  afraid  of  suppressing  some  genuine 
emotion  than  of  showing  any  in  the  slightest  degree  un- 
real. 

Although  Swift  took  in  the  main  what  may  be  called 
the  political  view  of  religion,  he  did  not  by  any  means 
accept  that  view  in  its  cynical  form.  He  did  not,  that  ivS, 
hold,  in  Gibbon's  famous  phrase,  that  all  religions  were 
equally  false  and  equally  useful.  His  religious  instincts 
were  as  strong  and  genuine  as  they  were  markedly  un- 
demonstrative. He  came  to  take  (I  am  anticipating  a 
little)  a  gloomy  view  of  the  world  and  of  human  nature. 
He  had  the  most  settled  conviction  not  only  of  the  mis- 
ery of  human  life  but  of  the  feebleness  of  the  good  ele- 
ments in  the  w^orld.  The  bad  and  the  stupid  are  the 
best  fitted  for  life  as  we  find  it.  Virtue  is  generally  a 
misfortune ;  the  more  we  sympathize,  the  more  cause  we 
have  for  wretchedness;  our  affections  give  us  the  purest 
kind  of  happiness,  and  yet  our  affections  expose  us  to 
sufferings  which  more  than  outweigh  the  enjoyments. 
There  is  no  such  thing,  he  said  in  his  decline,  as  "  a  fine 
old  gentleman ;"  if  so-and-so  had  had  either  a  mind  or  a 
body  worth  a  farthing,  "  they  would  have  worn  him  out  long- 
ago."  That  became  a  typical  sentiment  with  Swift.  His 
doctrine  was,  briefly,  that :  virtue  was  the  one  thing  which 
deserved  love  and  admiration  ;  and  yet  that  virtue,  in  this 
hideous   chaos  of  a  world,  involved  misery  and   decay. 


50  SWIFT.  [chap.  III. 

What  would  be  the  logical  result  of  such  a  creed  I  do  not 
presume  to  say.  Certainly,  we  should  guess,  something 
more  pessimistic  or  Manichsean  than  suits  the  ordinary 
interpretation  of  Christian  doctrine.  But  for  Swift  this 
state  of  mind  carried  with  it  the  necessity  of  clinging  to 
some  religious  creed:  not  because  the  creed  held  out 
promises  of  a  better  hereafter — for  Swift  was  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  present  to  dwell  much  upon  such  beliefs — 
but  rather  because  it  provided  him  with  some  sort  of  fixed 
convictions  in  this  strange  and  disastrous  muddle.  If  it 
did  not  give  a  solution  in  terms  intelligible  to  the  human 
intellect,  it  encouraged  the  belief  that  some  solution  ex- 
isted. It  justified  him  to  himself  for  continuing  to  re- 
spect morality,  and  for  going  on  living,  when  all  the  game 
of  life  seemed  to  be  decidedly  going  in  favour  of  the 
devil,  and  suicide  to  be  the  most  reasonable  course.  At 
least,  it  enabled  him  to  associate  himself  with  the  causes 
and  principles  which  he  recognized  as  the  most  ennobling 
element  in  the  world's  "  mad  farce ;"  and  to  utter  himself 
in  formulas  consecrated  by  the  use  of  such  wise  and  good 
beings  as  had  hitherto  shown  themselves  amongst  a 
wretched  race.  Placed  in  another  situation,  Swift,  no 
doubt,  might  have  put  his  creed — to  speak  after  the 
Clothes  Philosophy — into  a  different  dress.  The  sub- 
stance could  not  have  been  altered,  unless  his  whole 
character  as  well  as  his  particular  opinions  had  been 
profoundly  modified. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LARACOR   AND    LONDON. 

Swift  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  had  gained  a  small  amount 
of  cash  and  a  promise  from  William.  He  applied  to  the 
King,  but  the  great  man  in  whom  he  trusted  failed  to  de- 
liver his  petition ;  and,  after  some  delay,  he  accepted  an 
invitation  to  become  chaplain  and  secretary  to  the  Earl  of 
Berkeley,  just  made  one  of  the  Lords  Justices  of  Ireland. 
He  acted  as  secretary  on  the  journey  to  Ireland;  but, 
upon  reaching  Dublin,  Lord  Berkeley  gave  the  post  to 
another  man,  who  had  persuaded  him  that  it  was  unfit  for 
a  clergyman.  Swift  next  claimed  the  deanery  of  Dcrry, 
which  soon  became  vacant.  The  secretary  had  been 
bribed  by  1000/.  from  another  candidate,  upon  whom  the 
deanery  was  bestowed ;  but  Swift  was  told  that  he  might 
still  have  the  preference  for  an  equal  bribe.  Unable  or 
unwilling  to  comply,  he  took  leave  of  Berkeley  and  the 
secretary,  with  the  pithy  remark,  "God  confound  you 
both  for  a  couple  of  scoundrels."  He  was  partly  pacified, 
however  (February,  1700),  by  the  gift  of  Laracor,  a  village 
near  Trim,  some  twenty  miles  from  Dublin.  Two  other 
small  livings,  and  a  prebend  in  the  cathedral  of  St. 
Patrick,  made  up  a  revenue  of  about  2 30/.  a  year.^  The 
income  enabled  him  to  live ;  but,  in  spite  of  the  rigid 
economy  which  he  always  practised,  did  not  enable  him 
*  See  Forster,  p.  117. 


62  SWIFT.  [chap. 

to  save.  Marriage  under  sucli  circumstances  would  have 
meant  the  abandonment  of  an  ambitious  career.  A  wife 
and  family  would  have  anchored  him  to  his  country  par- 
sonage. 

This  may  help  to  explain  an  unpleasant  episode  which 
followed.  Poor  Varina  had  resisted  vSwift's  entreaties, 
on  the  ground  of  her  own  ill-health  and  Swift's  want  of 
fortune.  She  now,  it  seems,  thought  that  the  economical 
difficulty  was  removed  by  Swift's  preferment,  and  wished 
the  marriage  to  take  place.  Swift  replied  in  a  letter, 
which  contains  all  our  information,  and  to  which  I  can 
apply  no  other  epithet  than  brutal.  Some  men  might 
feel  bound  to  fulfil  a  marriage  engagement,  even  when 
love  had  grown  cold ;  others  might  think  it  better  to 
break  it  off  in  the  interests  of  both  parties.  Swift's  plan 
was  to  offer  to  fulfil  it  on  conditions  so  insulting  that  no 
one  with  a  grain  of  self-respect  could  accept.  In  his  let- 
ter he  expresses  resentment  for  Miss  Waring's  previous 
treatment  of  him ;  he  reproaches  her  bitterly  with  the 
company  in  which  she  lives — including,  as  it  seems,  her 
mother;  no  young  woman  in  the  world  with  her  income 
should  "dwindle  away  her  health  in  such  a  sink  and 
among  such  family  conversation."  He  explains  that  he  is 
still  poor ;  he  doubts  the  improvement  of  her  own  health  ; 
and  he  then  says  that  if  she  will  submit  to  be  educated  so 
as  to  be  capable  of  entertaining  him :  to  accept  all  his 
likes  and  dislikes:  to  soothe  his  ill-humour,  and  live 
cheerfully  wherever  he  pleases,  he  will  take  her  without 
inquiring  into  her  looks  or  her  income.  "  Cleanliness  in 
the  first,  and  competency  in  the  other,  is  all  I  look  for." 
Swift  could  be  the  most  persistent  and  ardent  of  friends. 
But,  when  any  one  tried  to  enforce  claims  no  longer  con- 
genial to  his  feelings,  the  appeal  to  the  galling  obligation 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  63 

stung  him  into  ferocity,  and  brought  out  the  most  brutal 
side  of  his  imperious  nature. 

It  was  in  the  course  of  the  next  year  that  Swift  took  a 
step  which  has  sometimes  been  associated  with  this.  The 
death  of  Temple  had  left  Esther  Johnson  homeless.  The 
small  fortune  left  to  her  by  Temple  consisted  of  an  Irish 
farm.  Swift  suggested  to  her  that  she  and  her  friend 
Mrs.  Dingley  would  get  better  interest  for  their  money, 
and  live  more  cheaply,  in  Ireland  than  in  England.  This 
change  of  abode  naturally  made  people  talk.  The  little 
parson  cousin  asked  (in  1706)  whether  Jonathan  had  been 
able  to  resist  the  charms  of  the  two  ladies  who  had 
marched  from  Moor  Park  to  Dublin  "  with  full  resolution 
to  engage  him."  Swift  was  now  (1701)  in  his  thirty- 
fourth  year,  and  Stella  a  singularly  beautiful  and  attractive 
girl  of  twenty.  The  anomalous  connexion  was  close,  and 
yet  most  carefully  guarded  against  scandal.  In  Swift's 
absence,  the  ladies  occupied  his  apartments  at  Dublin, 
When  he  and  they  were  in  the  same  place  they  took  sep- 
arate lodgings.  Twice,  it  seems,  they  accompanied  him 
on  visits  to  ]Sngland.  But  Swift  never  saw  Esther  John- 
son except  in  presence  of  a  third  person ;  and  he  incident- 
ally declares  in  1726 — near  the  end  of  her  life — that  he 
had  not  seen  her  in  a  morning  "  these  dozen  years,  except 
once  or  twice  in  a  journey."  The  relations  thus  regulated 
remained  unaltered  for  several  years  to  come.  Swift's 
duties  at  Laracor  were  not  excessive.  He  reckons  his  con- 
gregation at  fifteen  persons,  "  most  of  them  gentle  and  all 
simple."  He  gave  notice,  says  Orrery,  that  he  would  read 
prayers  every  Wednesday  and  Friday.  The  congregation 
on  the  first  Wednesday  consisted  of  himself  and  his  clerk, 
and  Swift  began  the  service,  "  Dearly  beloved  Roger,  the 
Scripture  moveth  you  and  me,"  and  so  forth.     This  being 


64  SWIFT.  [chap. 

attributed  to  Swift  is  supposed  to  be  an  exquisite  piece  of 
facetiousness ;  but  we  may  hope  that,  as  Scott  gives  us 
reason  to  think,  it  was  really  one  of  the  drifting  jests  that 
stuck  for  a  time  to  the  skirts  of  the  famous  humorist. 
What  is  certain  is,  that  Swift  did  his  best,  with  narrow 
means,  to  improve  the  living — rebuilt  the  house,  laid  out 
the  garden,  increased  the  glebe  from  one  acre  to  twenty, 
and  endowed  the  living  with  tithes  bought  by  himself. 
He  left  the  tithes  on  the  remarkable  condition  (suggested, 
probably,  by  his  fears  of  Presbyterian  ascendancy)  that, 
if  another  form  of  Christian  religion  should  become  the 
established  faith  in  this  kingdom,  they  should  go  to  the 
poor — excluding  Jews,  atheists,  and  infidels.  Swift  be- 
came attached  to  Laracor,  and  the  gardens  which  he  plant- 
ed in  humble  imitation  of  Moor  Park ;  he  made  friends 
of  some  of  the  neighbours ;  though  he  detested  Trim, 
where  "the  people  were  as  great  rascals  as  the  gentle- 
men ;"  but  Laracor  was  rather  an  occasional  retreat  than 
a  centre  of  his  interests.  During  the  following  years 
Swift  was  often  at  the  Castle  at  Dublin,  and  passed  consid- 
erable periods  in  London,  leaving  a  curate  in  charge  of  the 
minute  congregation  at  Laracor. 

He  kept  upon  friendly  terms  with  successive  Viceroys. 
He  had,  as  we  have  seen,  extorted  a  partial  concession  of 
his  claims  from  Lord  Berkeley.  For  Lord  Berkeley,  if  we 
may  argue  from  a  very  gross  lampoon,  he  can  have  felt 
nothing  but  contempt.  But  he  had  a  high  respect  for 
Lady  Berkeley;  and  one  of  the  daughters,  afterwards 
Lady  Betty  Germaine,  a  very  sensible  and  kindly  woman, 
retained  his  friendship  through  life,  and  in  letters  written 
long  afterwards  refers  with  evident  fondness  to  the  old 
days  of  familiarity.  He  was  intimate,  again,  with  the 
family  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  who  became  Lord  Lieu- 


IT.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  66 

tenant  in  1703,  and,  again,  was  the  close  friend  of  one  of 
the  daughters.  He  was  deeply  grieved  by  her  death  a 
few  years  later,  soon  after  her  marriage  to  Lord  Ashbiirn- 
ham.  "I  hate  life,"  he  says  characteristically,  "when  I 
think  it  exposed  to  such  accidents;  and  to  see  so  many 
thousand  wretches  burdening  the  earth  when  such  as  her 
die,  makes  me  think  God  did  never  intend  life  for  a  bless- 
ing." When  Lord  Pembroke  succeeded  Ormond,  Swift 
still  continued  chaplain,  and  carried  on  a  queer  commerce 
of  punning  with  Pembroke.  It  is  the  first  indication  of 
a  habit  which  lasted,  as  we  shall  see,  through  life.  One 
might  be  tempted  to  say,  were  it  not  for  the  conclusive 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  this  love  of  the  most  mechan- 
ical variety  of  facetiousness  implied  an  absence  of  any 
true  sense  of  humour.  Swift,  indeed,  was  giving  proofs 
that  he  possessed  a  full  share  of  that  ambiguous  talent. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  perfect  performance  of 
its  kind  than  the  poem  by  which  he  amused  the  Berkeley 
family  in  1700.  It  is  the  Petition  of  Mrs.  Frances  Har- 
ris, a  chambermaid,  who  had  lost  her  purse,  and  whose 
peculiar  style  of  language,  as  well  as  the  unsympathetic 
comments  of  her  various  fellow -servants,  are  preserved 
with  extraordinary  felicity  in  a  peculiar  doggerel  invented 
for  the  purpose  by  Swift.  One  fancies  that  the  famous 
Mrs.  Harris  of  Mrs.  Gamp's  reminiscences  was  a  phantasmal 
descendant  of  Swift's  heroine.  He  lays  bare  the  workings 
of  the  menial  intellect  with  the  clearness  of  a  master. 

Neither  Laracor  nor  Dublin  could  keep  Swift  from 
London.^     During  the  ten  years  succeeding  ITOO  he  must 

*  He  was  in  England  from  April  to  September  in  1701,  from  April 
to  November  in  1*702,  from  November,  1703,  till  May,  1704,  for  an  un- 
certain part  of  1705,  and  again  for  over  fifteen  months  from  the  end 
of  1707  till  the  beginning  of  1709. 


66  SWIFT.  [chap. 

have  passed  over  four  in  England.  In  the  last  period 
mentioned  he  was  acting  as  an  agent  for  the  Church  of 
Ireland.  In  the  others  he  was  attracted  by  pleasure  or 
ambition.  He  had  already  many  introductions  to  Lon- 
don society,  through  Temple,  through  the  Irish  Viceroys, 
and  through  Congreve,  the  most  famous  of  then  living 
wits. 

A  successful  pamphlet,  to  be  presently  mentioned,  help- 
ed his  rise, to  fame.  London  society  was  easy  of  access 
for  a  man  of  Swift's  qualities.  The  divisions  of  rank  were 
doubtless  more  strongly  marked  than  now.  Yet  society 
was  relatively  so  small,  and  concentrated  in  so  small  a 
space,  that  admission  into  the  upper  circle  meant  an  easy 
introduction  to  every  one  worth  knowing.  Any  notice- 
able person  became,  as  it  were,  member  of  a  club  which 
had  a  tacit  existence,  though  there  was  no  single  place  of 
meeting  or  recognized  organization.  Swift  soon  became 
known  at  the  coffee-houses,  which  have  been  superseded 
by  the  clubs  of  modern  times.  At  one  time,  according  to 
a  story  vague  as  to  dates,  he  got  the  name  of  the  "  mad 
parson  "  from  Addison  and  others,  by  his  habit  of  taking 
half-an-hour's  smart  walk  to  and  fro  in  the  coffee-house, 
and  then  departing  in  silence.  At  last  he  abruptly  ac- 
costed a  stranger  from  the  country :  "  Pray,  sir,  do  you 
remember  any  good  weather  in  the  world  ?"  "  Yes,  sir," 
was  the  reply,  "  I  thank  God  I  remember  a  great  deal  of 
good  weather  in  ray  time."  "  That,"  said  Swift, "  is  more 
than  I  can  say.  I  never  remember  any  weather  that  was 
not  too  hot  or  too  cold,  or  too  wet  or  too  dry ;  but,  how- 
ever God  Almighty  contrives  it,  at  the  end  of  the  year  'tis 
all  very  well ;"  with  which  sentiment  he  vanished.  AVhat- 
ever  his  introduction.  Swift  would  soon  make  himself  felt. 
The  Tale  of  a  Tub  appeared — with  a  very  complimentary 


iv.J  LARACOR  AND  LONDON,  61 

dedication  to  Somei-s — in  1704,  and  revealed  powers  be- 
yond the  rivalry  of  any  living  puthor. 

In  the  year  1705  Swift  became  intimate  with  Addison, 
who  wrote,  in  a  copy  of  his  Travels  in  Italy :  "  To  Jona- 
than Swift,  the  most  agreeable  companion,  the  truest  friend, 
and  the  greatest  genius  of  his  age,  this  work  is  presented  by 
his  most  humble  servant  the  author^  Though  the  word 
"genius"  had  scarcely  its  present  strength  of  meaning, 
the  phrase  certainly  implies  that  Addison  knew  Swift's 
authorship  of  the  Tale,  and  with  all  his  decorum  was  not 
repelled  by  its  audacious  satire.  The  pair  formed  a  close 
friendship,  which  is  honourable  to  both.  For  it  proves 
that  if  Swift  was  imperious,  and  Addison  a  little  too  fond 
of  the  adulation  of  "  wits  and  Templars,"  each  could  enjoy 
the  society  of  an  intellectual  equal.  They  met,  we  may 
fancy,  like  absolute  kings,  accustomed  to  the  incense  of 
courtiers,  and  not  inaccessible  to  its  charms ;  and  yet  glad 
at  times  to  throw  aside  state  and  associate  with  each  other 
without  jealousy.  Addison,  we  know,  was  most  charming 
when  talking  to  a  single  companion,  and  Delany  repeats 
Swift's  statement  that,  often  as  they  spent  their  evenings 
together,  they  never  wished  for  a  third.  Steele,  for  a  time, 
was  joined  in  what  Swift  calls  a  triumvirate;  and  though 
political  strife  led  to  a  complete  breach  with  Steele  and 
a  temporary  eclipse  of  familiarity  with  Addison,  it  never 
diminished  Swift's  affection  for  his  great  rival.  "That 
man,"  he  said  once,  "  has  virtue  enough  to  give  reputation 
to  an  age,"  and  the  phrase  expresses  his  settled  opinion. 
Swift,  however,  had  a  low  opinion  of  the  society  of  the 
average  "  wit."  "  The  worst  conversation  I  ever  heard  in 
my  life,"  he  says,  "  was  that  at  Will's  coffee-house,  where 
the  wits  (as  they  were  called)  used  formerly  to  assemble ;" 
and  he  speaks  with  a  contempt  recalling  Pope's  satire 


68  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

upon  the  "  little  senate  "  of  the  absurd  self-importance  and 
the  foolish  adulation  of  the  students  and  Templars  who 
listened  to  these  oracles.  Others  have  suspected  that  many 
famous  coteries  of  which  literary  people  are  accustomed 
to  speak  with  unction  probably  fell  as  far  short  in  reality 
of  their  traditional  pleasantness.  Swift's  friendship  with 
Addison  was  partly  due,  we  may  fancy,  to  difference  in 
temper  and  talent,  which  fitted  each  to  be  the  complement 
of  the  other.  A  curious  proof  of  the  mutual  good-will  is 
given  by  the  history  of  Swift's  Baucis  and  Philemon.  It 
is  a  humorous  and  agreeable  enough  travesty  of  Ovid ;  a 
bit  of  good-humoured  pleasantry,  which  we  may  take  as  it 
was  intended.  The  performance  was  in  the  spirit  of  the 
time ;  and  if  Swift  had  not  the  lightness  of  touch  of  his 
contemporaries.  Prior,  Gay,  Parnell,  and  Pope,  he  perhaps 
makes  up  for  it  by  greater  force  and  directness.  But  the 
piece  is  mainly  remarkable  because,  as  he  tells  us,  Addison 
made  him  "  blot  out  four  score  lines,  add  four  score,  and 
alter  four  score,"  though  the  whole  consisted  of  only  178 
verses.^  Swift  showed  a  complete  absence  of  the  ordinary 
touchiness  of  authors.  His  indifference  to  literary  fame  as 
to  its  pecuniary  rewards  was  conspicuous.  He  was  too 
proud,  as  he  truly  said,  to  be  vain.  His  sense  of  dignity 
restrained  him  from  petty  sensibility.  When  a  clergyman 
regretted  some  emendations  which  had  been  hastily  sug- 
gested by  himself  and  accepted  by  Swift,  Swift  replied 
that  it  mattered  little,  and  that  he  would  not  give  grounds, 
by  adhering  to  his  own  opinion,  for  an  imputation  of  van- 
ity. If  Swift  was  egotistical,  there  was  nothing  petty  even 
in  his  egotism. 

'  Mr,  Forster  found  the  original  MS.,  and  gives  us  the  exact  num- 
bers: 96  omitted,  44  added,  22  altered.  The  whole  was  IVS  lines 
after  the  omissions. 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  59 

A  piece  of  facetiousness  started  by  Swift  in  the  last 
of  his  visits  to  London  has  become  famous.  A  cobbler 
called  Partridge  had  set  up  as  an  astrologer,  and  published 
predictions  in  the  style  of  ZadkieVs  Almanac.  Swift 
amused  himself  in  the  beginning  of  1708  by  publishing 
a  rival  prediction  under  the  name  of  Isaac  Bickerstaff. 
Bickerstaff  professed  that  he  would  give  verifiable  and 
definite  predictions,  instead  of  the  vague  oracular  utterances 
of  his  rival.  The  first  of  these  predictions  announced  the 
approaching  death,  at  11  p.m.,  on  March  29,  of  Partridge 
himself.  Directly  after  that  day  appeared  a  letter  "to 
a  person  of  honour,"  announcing  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prediction  by  the  death  of  Partridge  within  four  hours  of 
the  date  assigned.  Partridge  took  up  the  matter  serious- 
ly, and  indignantly  declared  himself,  in  a  new  almanac,  to 
be  alive.  Bickerstaff  retorted  in  a  humorous  Vindication, 
arguing  that  Partridge  was  really  dead ;  that  his  con- 
tinuing to  write  almanacs  was  no  proof  to  the  contrar}^ 
and  so  forth.  All  the  wits,  great  and  small,  took  part  in 
the  joke :  the  Portuguese  Inquisition,  so  it  is  said,  were 
sufficiently  taken  in  to  condemn  Bickerstaff  to  the  flames ; 
and  Steele,  who  started  the  Taller  whilst  the  joke  was  afoot, 
adopted  the  name  of  Bickerstaff  for  the  imaginary  author. 
Dutiful  biographers  agree  to  admire  this  as  a  wonderful 
piece  of  fun.  The  joke  does  not  strike  me,  I  will  confess, 
as  of  very  exquisite  flavour ;  but  it  is  a  curious  illustration 
of  a  peculiarity  to  which  Swift  owed  some  of  his  power, 
and  which  seems  to  have  suggested  many  of  the  mythical 
anecdotes  about  him.  His  humour  very  easily  took  the 
form  of  practical  joking.  In  those  days  the  mutual  un- 
derstanding of  the  little  clique  of  wits  made  it  easy  to 
get  a  hoax  taken  up  by  the  whole  body.  They  joined 
to  persecute  poor  Partridge,  as  the  undergraduates  at  a 


60  SWIFT.  [chap. 

modern  college  miglit  join  to  tease  some  obnoxious 
tradesman.  Swift's  peculiar  irony  fitted  him  to  take 
the  lead ;  for  it  implied  a  singular  pleasure  in  realizing 
the  minute  consequences  of  some  given  hypothesis,  and 
working  out  in  detail  some  grotesque  or  striking  theory. 
The  love  of  practical  jokes,  which  seems  to  have  accom- 
panied him  through  life,  is  one  of  the  less  edifying  mani- 
festations of  the  tendency.  It  seems  as  if  he  could  not 
quite  enjoy  a  jest  till  it  was  translated  into  actual  tangible 
fact.  The  fancy  does  not  suffice  him  till  it  is  realized. 
If  the  story  about  "  dearly  beloved  Roger "  be  true,  it  is 
a  case  in  point.  Sydney  Smith  would  have  been  content 
with  suggesting  that  such  a  thing  might  be  done.  Swift 
was  not  satisfied  till  he  had  done  it.  And  even  if  it  be 
not  true,  it  has  been  accepted  because  it  is  like  the  truth. 
We  could  almost  fancy  that  if  Swift  had  thought  of 
Charles  Lamb's  famous  quibble  about  walking  on  an 
empty  stomach  ("  on  whose  empty  stomach  ?")  he  would 
have  liked  to  carry  it  out  by  an  actual  promenade  on  real 
human  flesh  and  blood. 

Swift  became  intimate  with  Irish  Viceroys,  and  with 
the  most  famous  wits  and  statesmen  of  London.  But 
he  received  none  of  the  good  things  bestowed  so  freely 
upon  contemporary  men  of  letters.  In  1705  Addison, 
his  intimate  friend,  and  his  junior  by  five  years,  had 
sprung  from  a  garret  to  a  comfortable  office.  Other  men 
passed  Swift  in  the  race.  He  notes  significantly,  in  1708, 
that  "  a  young  fellow,"  a  friend  of  his,  had  just  received 
a  sinecure  of  4001.  a  year,  as  an  addition  to  another  of 
300/.  Towards  the  end  of  1704  he  had  already  com- 
plained that  he  got  "nothing  but  the  good  words  and 
wishes  of  a  decayed  ministry,  whose  lives  and  mine  will 
probably  wear  out  before  they  can  serve  either  ray  little 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  61 

hopes,  or  their,  own  ambition."  Swift  still  remained  in 
his  own  district,  "a  hedge-parson,"  flattered,  caressed,  and 
neglected.  And  yet  he  held,*  that  it  was  easier  to  provide 
for  ten  men  in  the  Church  than  for  one  in  a  civil  em- 
ployment. To  understand  his  claims,  and  the  modes  by 
which  he  used  to  enforce  them,  we  must  advert  briefly  to 
the  state  of  English  politics.  A  clear  apprehension  of 
Swift's  relation  to  the  ministers  of  the  day  is  essential  to 
any  satisfactory  estimate  of  his  career. 

The  reign  of  Queen  Anne  was  a  period  of  violent  party 
spirit.  At  the  end  of  1703  Swift  humorously  declares 
that  even  the  cats  and  doojs  were  infected  with  the  Whi^j 
and  Tory  animosity.  The  "  very  ladies  "  were  divided  into 
High  Church  and  Low,  and,  "out  of  zeal  for  religion,  had 
hardly  time  to  say  their  prayers."  The  gentle  satire  of 
Addison  and  Steele,  in  the  Spectator,  confirms  Swift's 
contemporary  lamentations  as  to  the  baneful  effects  of 
party  zeal  upon  private  friendship.  And  yet  it  has  been 
often  said  that  the  party  issues  were  hopelessly  confound- 
ed. Lord  Stanhope  argues  —  and  he  is  only  repeating 
what  Swift  frequently  said — that  Whigs  and  Tories  had 
exchanged  principles."  In  later  years  Swift  constantly 
asserted  that  he  attacked  the  Whigs  in  defence  of  the 
true  Whig  faith.  He  belonged,  indeed,  to  a  party  almost 
limited  to  himself:  for  he  avowed  himself  to  be  the 
anomalous  hybrid,  a  High-church  Whig.  We,  must  there- 
fore, inquire  a  little  further  into  the  true  meaning  of  the 
accepted  shibboleths. 

Swift  had  come  from  Ireland  saturated  with  the  preju- 

'  See  letter  to  Peterborough,  May  6,  1711. 

'  In  most  of  their  principles  the  two  parties  seem  to  have  shifted 
opinions  since  their  institution  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. — Examiner, 
No.43,  May  31,  1711- 


62  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

dices  of  his  caste.  The  highest  Tory  in  Ireland,  as  he 
told  William,  would  make  a  tolerable  Whig  in  Eng- 
land. For  the  English  colonists  in  Ireland  the  expul- 
sion of  James  was  a  condition,  not  of  party  success  but 
of  existence.  Swift,  whose  personal  and  family  inter- 
ests were  identified  with  those  of  the  English  in  Ire- 
land, could  repudiate  James  with  his  whole  heart,  and 
heartily  accepted  the  Revolution ;  he  was,  therefore,  a 
Whig,  so  far  as  attachment  to  "Revolution  principles" 
was  the  distinctive  badge  of  Whiggism.  Swift  despised 
James,  and  he  hated  Popery  from  first  to  last.  Contempt 
and  hatred  with  him  were  never  equivocal,  and  in  this 
case  they  sprang  as  much  from  his  energetic  sense  as 
from  his  early  prejudices.  Jacobitism  was  becoming  a 
sham,  and  therefore  offensive  to  men  of  insight  into  facts. 
Its  ghost  walked  the  earth  for  some  time  longer,  and  at 
times  aped  reality ;  but  it  meant  mere  sentimentalism  or 
vague  discontent.  Swift,  when  asked  to  explain  its  per- 
sistence, said  that  when  he  was  in  pain  and  lying  on  his 
right  side,  he  naturally  turned  to  his  left,  though  he  might 
have  no  prospect  of  benefit  from  the  change.^  The  country 
squire,  who  drank  healths  to  the  king  over  the  water,  was 
tired  of  the  Georges,  and  shared  the  fears  of  the  typical 
Western,  that  his  lands  were  in  danger  of  being  sent  to 
Hanover.  The  Stuarts  had  been  in  exile  long  enough  to 
win  the  love  of  some  of  their  subjects.  Sufficient  time 
had  elapsed  to  erase  from  short  memories  the  true  cause  of 
their  fall.  Squires  and  parsons  did  not  cherish  less  warmly 
the  privileges  in  defence  of  which  they  had  sent  the  last 
Stuart  king  about  his  business.  Rather  the  privileges  had  be- 
come so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  the  very  fear  of  any 
assault  seemed  visionary.  The  Jacobitism  of  later  days 
'  Delany,  p.  211. 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  63 

did  not  mean  any  discontent  with  Revolution  principles, 
but  dislike  to  the  Revolution  dynasty.  The  Whig,  indeed, 
argued  with  true  party  logic  that  every  Tory  raust  be  a 
Jacobite,  and  every  Jacobite  a  lover  of  arbitrary  rule.  In 
truth,  a  man  might  wish  to  restore  the  Stuarts  without 
wishing  to  restore  the  principles  for  which  the  Stuarts  had 
been  expelled  :  he  might  be  a  Jacobite  without  being  a 
lover  of  arbitrary  rule ;  and  still  more  easily  might  he  be 
a  Tory  without  being  a  Jacobite.  Swift  constantly  asserted 
— and  in  a  sense  with  perfect  truth — that  the  revolution 
had  been  carried  out  in  defence  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  chiefly  by  attached  members  of  the  Church.  To 
be  a  sound  Churchman  was,  so  far,  to  be  pledged  against 
the  family  which  had  assailed  the  Church. 

Swift's  Whiggism  would  naturally  be  strengthened  by 
his  personal  relation  with  Temple,  and  with  various  Whigs 
whom  he  came  to  know  through  Temple.  But  Swift,  I 
have  said,  was  a  Churchman  as  well  as  a  Whig  ;  as  staunch 
a  Churchman  as  Laud,  and  as  ready,  I  imagine,  to  have 
gone  to  the  block  or  to  prison  in  defence  of  his  Church 
as  any  one  from  the  days  of  Laud  to  those  of  Mr.  Green. 
For  a  time  his  zeal  was  not  called  into  play ;  the  war  ab- 
sorbed all  interests.  Marlborough  and  Godolphin,  the 
great  heads  of  the  family  clique  which  dominated  poor 
Queen  Anne,  had  begun  as  Tories  and  Churchmen,  sup- 
ported by  a  Tory  majority.  The  war  had  been  dictated 
by  a  national  sentiment ;  but  from  the  beginning  it  was 
really  a  Whig  war :  for  it  was  a  war  against  Louis, 
Popery,  and  the  Pretender.  And  thus  the  great  men 
who  were  identified  with  the  war  began  slowly  to  edge 
over  to  the  party  whose  principles  were  the  war  princi- 
ples ;  who  hated  the  Pope,  the  Pretender,  and  the  King  of 
France,  as  their  ancestors  had  hated  Philip  of  Spain,  or  as 
4 


64  SWIFT.  [chap. 

their  descendants  hated  Napoleon.  The  war  meant  alli- 
ance with  the  Dutch,  who  had  been  the  martyrs  and  were 
the  enthusiastic  defenders  of  toleration  and  free-thought ; 
and  it  forced  English  ministers,  almost  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, into  the  most  successful  piece  of  statesmanship  of 
the  century,  the  Union  with  Scotland.  Now,  Swift  hated 
the  Dutch  and  hated  the  Scotch  with  a  vehemence  that 
becomes  almost  ludicrous.  The  margin  of  his  Burnet  was 
scribbled  over  with  execrations  against  the  Scots,  **  Most 
damnable  Scots,"  "  Scots  hell-hounds,"  "  Scotch  dogs," 
"  cursed  Scots  still,"  "hellish  Scottish  dogs,"  are  a  few  of 
his  spontaneous  flowers  of  speech.  His  prejudices  are  the 
prejudices  of  his  class  intensified  as  all  passions  were  in- 
tensified in  him.  Swift  regarded  Scotchmen  as  the  most 
virulent  and  dangerous  of  all  Dissenters ;  they  were  repre- 
sented to  him  by  the  Irish  Presbyterians,  the  natural 
rivals  of  his  Church.  He  reviled  the  Union,  because  it 
implied  the  recognition  by  the  State  of  a  sect  which  re- 
garded the  Church  of  England  as  little  better  than  a 
manifestation  of  Antichrist.  And,  in  this  sense,  Swift's 
sympathies  were  with  the  Tories.  For,  in  truth,  the  real 
contrast  between  Whigs  and  Tories,  in  respect  of  which 
there  is  a  perfect  continuity  of  principle,  depended  upon  the 
fact  that  the  Whigs  reflected  the  sentiments  of  the  middle 
classes,  the  "  monied  men  "  and  the  Dissenters ;  whilst  the 
Tories  reflected  the  sentiments  of  the  land  and  the  Church. 
Each  party  might  occasionally  adopt  the  commonplaces  or 
accept  the  measures  generally  associated  with  its  antago- 
nists; but  at  bottom  the  distinction  was  between  squire 
and  parson  on  one  side,  tradesman  and  banker  on  the 
other. 

The  domestic  politics  of  the  reign  of  Anne  turned  upon 
this  difference.     The  history  is  a  history  of  the  gradual 


IV.]  LAKACOR  AND  LONDON.  66 

shifting  of  government  to  the  "Whig  side,  and  the  grow- 
ing alienation  of  the  clergy  and  squires,  accelerated  by  a 
system  which  caused  the  "fiscal  burden  of  the  war  to  fall 
chiefly  upon  the  land.  Bearing  this  in  mind.  Swift's 
conduct  is  perfectly  intelligible.  His  first  plunge  into 
politics  was  in  1701.  Poor  King  William  was  in  the 
thick  of  the  perplexities  caused  by  the  mysterious  per- 
verseness  of  English  politicians.  The  King's  ministers, 
supported  by  the  House  of  Lords,  had  lost  the  command 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  had  not  yet  come  to  be 
understood  that  the  Cabinet  was  to  be  a  mere  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  personal  wishes  of  the 
sovereign,  and  the  alliances  and  jealousies  of  great  court- 
iers, were  still  highly  important  factors  in  the  political 
situation ;  as,  indeed,  both  the  composition  and  the  sub- 
sequent behaviour  of  the  Commons  could  be  controlled  to 
a  considerable  extent  by  legitimate  and  other  influences 
of  the  Crown.  The  Commons,  unable  to  make  their 
will  obeyed,  proceeded  to  impeach  Somers  and  other 
ministers.  A  bitter  struggle  took  place  between  the 
two  Houses,  which  was  suspended  by  the  summer  re- 
cess. At  this  crisis  Swift  published  his  Discourse  on  the 
Dissensions  in  Athens  and  Rome.  The  abstract  political 
argument  is  as  good  or  as  bad  as  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  thousand  political  treatises — that  is 
to  say,  a  repetition  of  familiar  commonplaces ;  and  the 
mode  of  applying  precedents  from  ancient  politics  would 
now  strike  us  as  pedantic.  The  pamphlet,  however,  is 
dignified  and  well-written,  and  the  application  to  the  im- 
mediate difficulty  is  pointed.  His  argument  is,  briefiy, 
that  the  House  of  Commons  is  showing  a  factious, 
tyrannical  temper,  identical  in  its  nature  with  that  of  a 
single  tyrant  and  as  dangerous  in  its  consequences;  that 


66  SWIFT.  [chap. 

it  has,  therefore,  ceased  to  reflect  the  opinions  of  its  con- 
stituents, and  has  endangered  the  sacred  balance  between 
the  three  primary  elements  of  our  constitution,  upon 
which  its  safe  working  depends. 

The  pamphlet  was  from  beginning  to  end  a  remon- 
strance against  the  impeachments,  and  therefore  a  de- 
fence, of  the  "Whig  lords,  for  whom  sufficiently  satisfac- 
tory parallels  are  vaguely  indicated  in  Pericles,  Aristides, 
and  so  forth.  It  was  "greedily  bought;"  it  was  attrib- 
uted to  Somers  and  to  the  great  Whig  bishop,  Buraet, 
who  had  to  disown  it  for  fear  of  an  impeachment.  An 
Irish  bishop,  it  is  said,  called  Swift  a  "  very  positive  young 
man  "  for  doubting  Burnet's  authorship ;  whereupon  Swift 
had  to  claim  it  for  himself.  Youthful  vanity,  according 
to  his  own  account,  induced  him  to  make  the  admission, 
which  would  certainly  not  have  been  withheld  by  adult 
discretion.  For  the  result  was  that  Somers,  Halifax,  and 
Sunderland,  three  of  the  great  Whig  junto,  took  him  up, 
often  admitted  him  to  their  intimacy,  and  were  liberal  in 
promising  him  "the  greatest  preferments"  should  they 
come  into  power.  Before  long  Swift  had  another  oppor- 
tunity which  was  also  a  temptation.  The  Tory  House 
of  Commons  had  passed  the  bill  against  occasional  con- 
formity. Ardent  partisans  generally  approved  this  bill, 
as  it  was  clearly  annoying  to  Dissenters.  It  was  directed 
against  the  practice  of  qualifying  for  office  by  taking  the 
sacrament  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land without  permanently  conforming.  It  might  be  fairly 
argued — as  Defoe  argued,  though  with  questionable  sin- 
cerity— that  such  a  temporary  compliance  would  be  really 
injurious  to  Dissent.  The  Church  would  profit  by  such 
an  exhibition  of  the  flexibility  of  its  opponents'  principles.. 
Passions  were  too  much  heated  for  such  arguments;  and 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  67 

in  tlic  winter  of  1 703-04,  people,  says  Swift,  talked  of 
nothing  else.  He  was  "  mightily  urged  by  some  great 
people"  to  publish  his  opinion.  An  argument  from  a 
powerful  wTiter,  and  a  clergyman,  against  the  bill  would 
be  very  useful  to  his  Whig  friends.  But  Swift's  High 
Church  prejudices  made  him  hesitate.  The  Whig  lead- 
ers assured  him  that  nothing  should  induce  them  to  vote 
against  the  bill  if  they  expected  its  rejection  to  hurt  the 
Church  or  "do  kindness  to  the  Dissenters."  But  it  is 
precarious  to  argue  from  the  professed  intentions  of 
statesmen  to  their  real  motives,  and  yet  more  precarious 
to  argue  to  the  consequences  of  their  actions.  Swift 
knew  not  what  to  think.  He  resolved  to  think  no 
more.  At  last  he  made  up  his  mind  to  write  against 
the  bill,  but  he  made  it  up  too  late.  The  bill  failed  to 
pass,  and  Swift  felt  a  relief  in  dismissing  this  delicate 
subject.  He  might  still  call  himself  a  Whig,  and  exult 
in  the  growth  of  AYhiggism.  Meanwhile  he  persuaded 
himself  that  the  Dissenters  and  their  troubles  were  be- 
neath his  notice. 

They  were  soon  to  come  again  to  the  front.  Swift 
came  to  London  at  the  end  of  1707,  charged  with  a  mis- 
sion on  behalf  of  his  Church.  Queen  Anne's  Bounty  was 
founded  in  1704.  The  Crown  restored  to  the  Church  the 
first-fruits  and  tenths  which  Henry  VHI.  had  diverted 
from  the  papal  into  his  own  treasury,  and  appropriated 
them  to  the  augmentation  of  small  livings.  It  was  pro- 
posed to  get  the  same  boon  for  the  Church  of  Ireland. 
The  whole  sum  amounted  to  about  1000/.  a  year,  with  a 
possibility  of  an  additional  2000/.  Swift,  who  had  spoken 
of  this  to  King,  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  now  to 
act  as  solicitor  on  behalf  of  the  Irish  clergy,  and  hoped  to 
make  use  of  his  influence  with  Somers  and  Sunderland. 


68  SWIFT.  [chap. 

The  negotiation  was  to  give  him  more  trouble  than  he 
foresaw,  and  initiate  him,  before  he  had  done  with  it,  into 
certain  secrets  of  cabinets  and  councils  which  he  as  yet 
very  imperfectly  appreciated.  His  letters  to  King,  con- 
tinued over  a  long  period,  throw  much  light  on  his  mo- 
tives. Swift  was  in  England  from  November,  1707,  till 
March,  1709.  The  year  1708  was  for  him,  as  he  says,  a 
year  of  suspense,  a  year  of  vast  importance  to  his  career, 
and  marked  by  some  characteristic  utterances.  He  hoped 
to  use  his  influence  with  Soraers.  S«oraers,  though  still 
out  of  office,  was  the  great  oracle  of  the  Whigs,  whilst 
Sunderland  was  already  Secretary  of  State.  In  January, 
1708,  the  bishopric  of  Waterford  was  vacant,  and  Somers 
tried  to  obtain  the  see  for  Swift.  The  attempt  failed,  but 
the  political  catastrophe  of  the  next  month  gave  hopes 
that  the  influence  of  Somers  would  soon  be  paramount. 
Harley,  the  prince  of  wire-pulling  and  back-stair  intrigue, 
had  exploded  the  famous  Masham  plot.  Though  this 
project  failed,  it  was  *'  reckoned,"  says  Swift,  *'  the  great- 
est piece  of  court  skill  that  has  been  acted  many  years." 
Queen  Anne  was  to  take  advantage  of  the  growing  aliena- 
tion of  the  Church  party  to  break  her  bondage  to  the 
Marlboroughs,  and  change  her  ministers.  But  the  at- 
tempt was  premature,  and  discomfited  its  devisers.  Har- 
ley was  turned  out  of  oflSce ;  Marlborough  and  Godolphin 
came  into  alliance  with  the  Whig  junto ;  and  the  Queen's 
bondage  seemed  more  complete  than  ever.  A  cabinet 
crisis  in  those  days,  however,  took  a  long  time.  It  was 
not  till  October,  1708,  that  the  Whigs,  backed  by  a  new 
Parliament  and  strengthened  by  the  victory  of  Oudenarde, 
were  in  full  enjoyment  of  power.  Somers  at  last  became 
President  of  the  Council  and  Wharton  Lord  Lieutenant  of 
Ireland.     Wharton's  appointment  was  specially  significant 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  69 

for  Swift.  He  was,  as  even  Whigs  admitted,  a  man  of  in- 
famous character,  redeemed  only  by  energy  and  unflinch- 
ing fidelity  to  his  party.  He  was  licentious  and  a  free- 
thinker; his  infidelity  showed  itself  in  the  grossest  out- 
rages against  common  decency.  If  he  had  any  religious 
principle  it  was  a  preference  of  Presbyterians,  as  sharing 
his  antipathy  to  the  Church.  No  man  could  be  more  radi- 
cally antipathetic  to  Swift.  Meanwhile,  the  success  of 
the  Whigs  meant,  in  the  first  instance,  the  success  of  the 
men  from  whom  Swift  had  promises  of  preferment.  He 
tried  to  use  his  influence  as  he  had  proposed.  In  June 
he  had  an  interview  about  the  first-fruits  with  Godolphin, 
to  whom  he  had  been  recommended  by  Somers  and  Sun- 
derland. Godolphin  replied  in  vague  officialisms,  suggest- 
ing with  studied  vagueness  that  the  Irish  clergy  must 
show  themselves  more  grateful  than  the  English.  His 
meaning,  as  Swift  thought,  was  that  the  Irish  clergy 
should  consent  to  a  repeal  of  the  Test  Act,  regarded  by 
them  and  by  him  as  the  essential  bulwark  of  the  Church. 
Nothing  definite,  however,  was  said ;  and  meanwhile  Swift, 
though  he  gave  no  signs  of  compliance,  continued  to  hope 
for  his  own  preferment.  When  the  final  triumph  of  the 
Whigs  came  he  was  still  hoping,  though  with  obvious 
qualms  as  to  his  position.  He  begged  King  (in  Novem- 
ber, 1708)  to  believe  in  his  fidelity  to  the  Church.  Offers 
might  be  made  to  him,  but  "  no  prospect  of  making  my 
fortune  shall  ever  prevail  on  me  to  go  against  what  be- 
comes a  man  of  conscience  and  truth,  and  an  entire  friend 
to  the  Established  Church."  He  hoped  that  he  might  be 
appointed  secretary  to  a  projected  embassy  to  Vienna,  a 
position  which  would  put  him  beyond  the  region  of  do- 
mestic politics. 

Meanwhile  he  had  published  certain  tracts  which  may 


10 


SWIFT. 


[chap. 


^/ 


\ 


\ 


^i 


ft  Project  for 
Sentiments  of  a 


be  taken  as  the  manifesto  of  his  faith  at  the  time  when 
his  principles  were  being  most  severely  tested.  Would  he 
or  would  he  not  sacrifice  his  Churchmanship  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  party  with  which  he  was  still  allied  ?  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  by  an  open  declaration  of  Whig 
principles  in  Church  matters — such  a  declaration,  say,  as 
would  have  satisfied  Burnet — he  would  have  qualified 
himself  for  prefernrcnt,  and  have  been  in  a  position  to 
command  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  made  by  Somers 
and  Sunderland. 

The  writings  in  question  were  the  AmuiMnLJo 
th^Jncowmdence  of  Ahnlishing  Christianity  ; 
the~Jidvancement  of  Jiehffton ;' and  the 
Church  of  England  Man.     The  first,  as  I  have  said,  was 
meant  to  sho<^JEat  the  satirical  powers  which  had  given 


nffifmr^p  in  thr-  '^"J*'  rf  a  Tuh  could-h^,  applied  without 
equivocation  in  defence  of  Christian  it  y^_i  The  Project  is 
a  very  forcible  exposition  of  a  text  which  is  common 
enough  in  all  ages — namely,  that  the  particular  age  of 
the  writer  is  one  of  unprecedented  corruption.  It  shares, 
however,  with  Swift's  other  writings,  the  merit  of  down- 
right sincerity,  which  convinces  us  that  the  author  is  not 
repeating  platitudes,  but  giving  his  own  experience  and 
speaking  from  conviction.  His  proposals  for  a  reform, 
though  he  must  have  felt  them  to  be  chimerical,  are  con- 
ceived in  the  spirit  common  in  the  days  before  people  had 
begun  to  talk  about  the  state  and  the  individual.  He  as- 
sumes throughout  that  a  vigorous  action  of  the  court  and 
the  government  will  reform  the  nation.  He  does  not  con- 
template the  now  commonplace  objection  that  such  a  revival 
of  the  Puritanical  system  might  simply  stimulate  hypocrisy. 
He  expressly  declares  that  religion  may  be  brought  into 
fashion  "  by  the  power  of  the  administration,"  and  assumes 


IV.]  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  71 

that  to  bring  religion  into  fashion  is  the  same  thing  as  to 
make  men  religious.  This  view — suitable  enough  to  Swift's 
imperious  temper — was  also  the  general  assumption  of  the 
time.  A  suggestion  thrown  out  in  his  pamphlet  is  gen- 
erally said  to  have  led  to  the  scheme  soon  afterwards  car- 
ried out  under  Harley's  administration  for  building  fifty 
new  churches  in  London.  A  more  personal  touch  is  Swift's 
complaint  that  the  clergy  sacrifice  their  influence  by  "  se- 
questering themselves  "  too  much,  and  forming  a  separate 
caste.  This  reads  a  little  like  an  implied  defence  of  him- 
self for  frequenting  London  coffee-houses,  when  cavillers 
might  have  argued  that  he  should  be  at  Laracor.  But,  like 
all  Swift's  utterances,  it  covered  a  settled  principle.  I  have 
already  noticed  this  peculiarity,  which  he  shows  elsewhere 
when  describing  himself  as 

"  A  clergyman  of  special  note 
For  shunning  others  of  his  coat ; 
Which  made  his  brethren  of  the  gown 
Take  care  betimes  to  run  him  down." 

The  Sentiments  of  a  Church  of  England  Man  is  more 
significant.  It  is  a  summary  of  his  unvarying  creed.  In 
politics  he  is  a  good  Whig.  He  interprets  the  theory  of 
passive  obedience  as  meaning  obedience  to  the  "  legislative 
power ;"  not  therefore  to  the  King  specially ;  and  he  delib- 
erately accepts  the  Revolution  on  the  plain  ground  of  the 
salus  populi.  His  leading  maxim  is  that  the  "  administra- 
tion cannot  be  placed  in  too  few  hands  nor  the  Legislature 
in  too  many."  But  this  political  liberality  is  associated 
with  unhesitating  Churchmanship.  Sects  are  mischievous : 
to  say  that  they  are  mischievous  is  to  say  that  they  ought 
to  be  checked  in  their  beginning ;  where  they  exist  they 
should  be  tolerated,  but  not  to  the  injury  of  the  Church. 
4* 


72  SWIFT.  [cuAP. 

And  hence  he  reaches  his  leading  principle  that  a  "  gov- 
ernment cannot  give  them  (sects)  too  much  ease,  nor  trust 
them  with  too  little  power."  Such  doctrines  clearly  and 
tersely  laid  down  were  little  to  the  taste  of  the  Whigs,  who 
were  more  anxious  than  ever  to  conciliate  the  Dissenters. 
But  it  was  not  till  the  end  of  the  year  that  Swift  applied 
his  abstract  theory  to  a  special  case.  There  had  been 
various  symptoms  of  a  disposition  to  relax  the  Test  Acts 
in  Ireland.  The  appointment  of  Wharton  to  be  Lord 
Lieutenant  was  enough  to  alarm  Swift,  even  though  his 
friend  Addison  was  to  be  Wharton's  secretary.  In  Decem- 
ber, 1708,  he  published  a  pamphlet,  ostensibly  a  letter  from 
a  member  of  the  Irish  to  a  member  of  the  English  House 
of  Commons,  in  which  the  necessity  of  keeping  up  the 
Test  was  vigorously  enforced.  It  is  the  first  of  Swift's 
political  writings  in  which  we  see  his  true  power.  In 
those  just  noticed  he  is  forced  to  take  an  impartial  tone. 
He  is  trying  to  reconcile  himself  to  his  alliance  with  the 
Whigs,  or  to  reconcile  the  Whigs  to  their  protection  of 
himself.  He  speaks  as  a  moderator,  and  poses  as  the  dig- 
nified moralist  above  all  party  feeling.  But  in  this  letter 
he  throws  the  reins  upon  his  humour,  and  strikes  his  op- 
ponents full  in  the  face.  From  his  own  point  of  view  the 
pamphlet  is  admirable.     He  quotes  Cowley's  verse : 

"  Forbid  it,  Heaven,  my  life  should  be 
Weighed  by  thy  least  conveniency." 

The  Irish,  by  which  he  means  the  English,  and  the  Eng- 
lish exclusively  of  the  Scotch,  in  Ireland,  represent  this 
enthusiastic  lover,  and  are  called  upon  to  sacrifice  them- 
selves to  the  political  conveniency  of  the  Whig  party. 
Swift  expresses  his  usual  wrath  against  the  Scots,  who  are 
eating  up  the  land,  boasts  of  the  loyalty  of  the  Irish 


iv.J  LARACOR  AND  LONDON.  73 

Church,  and  taunts  the  Presbyterians  with  their  tyranny 
in  former  days.  Am  I  to  be  forced,  he  asks,  "to  keep 
my  chaplain  disguised  like  ray  butler,  and  steal  to  prayers 
in  a  back  room,  as  my  grandfather  used  in  those  times 
when  the  Church  of  England  was  malignant?"  Is  not  this 
a  ripping  up  of  old  quarrels?  Ought  not  all  Protestants 
to  unite  against  Papists  ?  No,  the  enemy  is  the  same  as 
ever.  "It  is  agreed  among  naturalists  that  a  lion  is  a 
larger,  a  stronger,  and  more  dangerous  enemy  than  a  cat ; 
yet  if  a  man  were  to  have  his  choice,  either  a  lion  at  his 
foot  fast  bound  with  three  or  four  chains,  his  teeth  drawn 
out,  and  his  claws  pared  to  the  quick,  or  an  angry  cat  in 
full  liberty  at  his  throat,  he  would  take  no  long  time  to 
determine."  The  bound  lion  means  the  Catholic  natives, 
whom  Swift  declares  to  be  as  "inconsiderable  as  the 
women  and  children." 

Meanwhile  the  long  first-fruits  negotiation  was  languid- 
ly proceeding.  At  last  it  seemed  to  be  achieved.  Lord 
Pembroke,  the  outgoing  Lord  Lieutenant,  sent  Swift 
word  that  the  grant  had  been  made.  Swift  reported  his 
success  to  Archbishop  King  with  a  very  pardonable  touch 
of  complacency  at  his  "  very  little  "  merit  in  the  matter. 
But  a  bitter  disappointment  followed.  The  promise  made 
had  never  been  fulfilled.  In  March,  1709,  Swift  had  again 
to  write  to  the  Archbishop,  recounting  his  failure,  his  at- 
tempt to  remonstrate  with  Wharton,  the  new  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant, and  the  too  certain  collapse  of  the  whole  business. 
The  failure  was  complete;  the  promised  boon  was  not 
granted,  and  Swift's  chance  of  a  bishopric  had  pretty  well 
vanished.  Halifax,  the  great  Whig  Maecenas,  and  the  Bufo 
of  Pope,  wrote  to  him  in  his  retirement  at  Dublin,  declar- 
ing that  he  had  "  entered  into  a  confederacy  with  Mr. 
Addison  "  to  urge  Swift's  claims  upon  Government,  and 


•74  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

speaking  of  the  declining  health  of  South,  then  a  preben- 
dary of  Westminster.  Swift  endorsed  this :  "  I  lock  up  this 
letter  as  a  true  original  of  courtiers  and  court  promises," 
and  wrote  in  a  volume  he  had  begged  from  the  same  per- 
son that  it  was  the  only  favour  "  he  ever  received  from 
him  or  his  party."  In  the  last  months  of  his  stay  he  had 
suffered  cruelly  from  his  old  giddiness,  and  he  went  to 
Ireland,  after  a  visit  to  his  mother  in  Leicester,  in  suffi- 
ciently gloomy  mood;  retired  to  Laracor,  and  avoided 
any  intercourse  with  the  authorities  at  the  Castle,  except- 
ing always  Addison. 

To  this  it  is  necessary  to  add  one  remark.  Swift's 
version  of  the  story  is  substantially  that  which  I  have 
given,  and  it  is  everywhere  confirmed  by  contemporary 
letters.  It  shows  that  he  separated  from  the  "Whig  party 
■when  at  the  height  of  their  power,  and  separated  because  he 
thought  them  opposed  to  the  Church  principles  which  he 
advocated  from  first  to  last.  It  is  most  unjust,  therefore, 
to  speak  of  Swift  as  a  deserter  from  the  Whigs,  because 
he  afterwards  joined  the  Church  party,  which  shared  all  his 
strongest  prejudices.  I  am  so  far  from  seeing  any  ground 
for  such  a  charge,  that  I  believe  that  few  men  have  ever 
adhered  more  strictly  to  the  principles  with  which  they 
have  started.  But  such  charges  have  generally  an  element 
of  truth ;  and  it  is  easy  here  to  "point  out  what  was  the 
really  weak  point  in  Swift's  position. 

Swift's  writings,  with  one  or  two  trifling  exceptions, 
were  originally  anonymous.  As  they  were  very  apt  to 
produce  warrants  for  the  apprehension  of  publisher  and 
author,  the  precaution  was  natural  enough  in  later  years. 
The  mask  was  often  merely  ostensible;  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection against  legal  prosecution,  but  in  reality  covering 
an  open  secret.     When  in  the  Sentiments  of  a  Church  of 


iv]  LARACOR  AND  LONDOX.  16 

England  Man  Swift  professes  to  conceal  his  name  care- 
fully, it  may  be  doubted  how  far  this  is  to  be  taken  se- 
riously. But  he  went  much  further  in  the  letter  on  the 
Test  Act.  He  inserted  a  passage  intended  really  to  blind 
his  adversaries  by  a  suggestion  that  Dr.  Swift  was  likely 
to  write  in  favour  of  abolishing  the  Test;  and  he  even 
complains  to  King  of  the  unfairness  of  this  treatment. 
His  assault,  therefore,  upon  the  supposed  Whig  policy 
was  clandestine.  This  may  possibly  be  justified ;  he 
might  even  urge  that  he  was  still  a  Whig,  and  was  warn- 
ing ministers  against  measures  which  they  had  not  yet 
adopted,  and  from  which,  as  he  thinks,  they  may  still  be 
deterred  by  an  alteration  of  the  real  Irish  feeling.*  He 
complained  afterwards  that  he  was  ruined — that  is,  as  to 
his  chances  of  preferment  from  the  party — by  the  suspi- 
cion of  his  authorship  of  this  tract.  That  is  to  say,  he  was 
"  ruined  "  by  the  discovery  of  his  true  sentiments.  This 
is  to  admit  that  he  was  still  ready  to  accept  preferment 
from  the  men  whose  supposed  policy  he  was  bitterly  at- 
tacking, and  that  he  resented  their  alienation  as  a  grievance. 
The  resentment,  indeed,  was  most  bitter  and  pertinacious. 
He  turned  savagely  upon  his  old  friends  because  they  would 
not  make  him  a  bishop.  The  answer  from  their  point  of 
view  was  conclusive.  He  had  made  a  bitter  and  covert 
attack,  and  he  could  not  at  once  claim  a  merit  from 
Churchmen  for  defending  the  Church  against  the  Whigs, 
and  revile  the  Whigs  for  not  rewarding  him.  But  incon- 
sistency of  this  kind  is  characteristic  of  Swift.  He  thought 
the  W^higs  scoundrels  for  not  patronizing  him,  and  not 
the  less  scoundrels  because  their  conduct  was  consistent 
with  their  own  scoundrelly  principles.  People  who  differ 
from  me  must  be  wicked,  argued  this  consistent  egotist, 
*  Letter  to  Kinp;,  January  6,  1709. 


76  SWIFT.  [chap.  iv. 

and  their  refusal  to  reward  me  is  only  an  additional  wick- 
edness. The  case  appeared  to  him  as  though  he  had  been 
a  Nathan  sternly  warning  a  David  of  his  sins,  and  for  that 
reason  deprived  of  honour.  David  could  not  have  urged 
his  sinful  desires  as  an  excuse  for  ill-treatment  of  Nathan. 
And  Swift  was  inclined  to  class  indifference  to  the  welfare 
of  the  Church  as  a  sin  even  in  an  avowed  Whig.  Yet  he 
had  to  ordinary  minds  forfeited  any  right  to  make  non- 
fulfilment  a  grievance,  when  he  ought  to  have  regarded 
performance  as  a  disgrace. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    HARLEY    ADMINISTRATION. 

In  the  autumn  of  1710  Swift  was  approaching  the  end  of 
his  forty-third  year.  A  man  may  well  feel  at  forty-two 
that  it  is  high  time  that  a  post  should  have  been  assigned 
to  him.  Should  an  opportunity  be  then,  and  not  till 
then,  put  in  his  way,  he  feels  that  he  is  throwing  for 
heavy  stakes ;  and  that  failure,  if  failure  should  follow, 
would  be  irretrievable.  Swift  had  been  longing  vainly 
for  an  opening.  In  the  remarkable  letter  (of  April,  1722) 
from  which  I  have  quoted  the  anecdote  of  the  lost  fish,  he 
says  that  "  all  my  endeavours  from  a  boy  to  distinguish 
myself  were  only  for  want  of  a  great  title  and  fortune,  that 
I  might  be  used  like  a  lord  by  those  who  have  an  opinion 
of  my  parts ;  whether  right  or  wrong  is  no  great  matter ; 
and  so  the  reputation  of  wit  or  great  learning  does  the 
office  of  a  blue  riband  or  of  a  coach  and  six  horses." 
The  phrase  betrays  Swift's  scornful  self -mockery ;  that 
inverted  hypocrisy  which  led  him  to  call  his  motives  by 
their  worst  names,  and  to  disavow  what  he  might  have 
been  sorry  to  see  denied  by  others.  But,  like  all  that 
Swift  says  of  himself,  it  also  expresses  a  genuine  convic- 
tion. Swift  was  ambitious,  and  his  ambition  meant  an 
absolute  need  of  imposing  his  will  upon  otners.  He  was 
a  man  born  to  rule ;  not  to  affect  thought,  but  to  control 


78  SWIFT.  [chap. 

conduct.  He  was,  therefore,  unable  to  find  full  occupa- 
tion, though  he  might  seek  occasional  distraction,  in  liter- 
ary pursuits.  Archbishop  King,  who  had  a  strange  knack 
of  irritating  his  correspondent — not,  it  seems,  without  in- 
tention— annoyed  Swift  intensely  in  1711  by  advising 
him  (most  superfluously)  to  get  preferment,  and  with  that 
view  to  write  a  serious  treatise  upon  some  theological 
question.  Swift,  who  was  in  the  thick  of  his  great 
political  struggle,  answered  that  it  was  absurd  to  ask  a 
man  floating  at  sea  what  he  meant  to  do  when  he  got 
ashore.  "  Let  him  get  there  first  and  rest  and  dry  him- 
self, and  then  look  about  him."  To  find  firm  footing 
amidst  the  welter  of  political  intrigues  was  Swift's  first 
object.  Once  landed  in  a  deanery  he  might  begin  to  think 
about  writing ;  but  he  never  attempted,  like  many  men  in 
his  position,  to  win  preferment  through  literary  achieve- 
ments. To  a  man  of  such  a  temperament  his  career  must 
so  far  have  been  cruelly  vexatious.  We  are  generally 
forced  to  judge  of  a  man's  life  by  a  few  leading  incidents ; 
and  we  may  be  disposed  to  infer  too  hastily  that  the 
passions  roused  on  those  critical  occasions  coloured  the 
whole  tenor  of  every-day  existence.  Doubtless  Swift  was 
not  always  fretting  over  fruitless  prospects.  He  was 
often  eating  his  dinner  in  peace  and  quiet,  and  even 
amusing  himself  with  watching  the  Moor  Park  rooks  or 
the  Laracor  trout.  Yet  it  is  true  that,  so  far  as  a  man's 
happiness  depends  upon  the  consciousness  of  a  satisfactory 
employment  of  his  faculties,  whether  with  a  view  to  glory 
or  solid  comfort.  Swift  had  abundant  causes  of  discontent. 
The  "  conjured  spirit "  was  still  weaving  ropes  of  sand. 
For  ten  years  he  had  been  dependent  upon  Temple,  and 
his  struggles  to  get  upon  his  own  legs  had  been  fruitless. 
On  Temple's  death  he  managed  when  past  thirty  to  wring 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  79 

from  fortune  a  position  of  bare  independence,  not  of 
satisfying  activity — he  had  not  gained  a  fulcrum  from 
which  to  move  the  world — but  only  a  bare  starting-point 
whence  he  might  continue  to  work.  The  promises  from 
great  men  had  come  to  nothing.  He  might  perhaps  have 
realized  them,  could  he  have  consented  to  be  faithless  to 
his  dearest  convictions;  the  consciousness  that  he  had  so 
far  sacrificed  his  position  to  his  principles  gave  him  no 
comfort,  though  it  nourished  his  pride.  His  enforced 
reticence  produced  an  irritation  against  the  ministers 
whom  it  had  been  intended  to  conciliate,  which  deepened 
into  bitter  resentment  for  their  neglect.  The  year  and  a 
lialf  passed  in  Ireland  during  1 709- 10  was  a  period  in 
which  his  day-dreams  must  have  had  a  background  of  dis- 
appointed hopes.  "  I  stayed  above  half  the  time,"  he 
says,  "  in  one  scurvy  acre  of  ground,  and  I  always  left  it 
with  regret."  He  shut  himself  up  at  Laracor,  and  nour- 
ished a  growing  indignation  against  the  party  represented 
by  Wharton. 

Yet  events  were  moving  rapidly  in  England,  and  open- 
ing a  new  path  for  his  ambition.  The  Whigs  were  in 
full  possession  of  power,  though  at  the  price  of  a  growing 
alienation  of  all  who  were  weary  of  a  never-ending  war, 
or  hostile  to  the  Whig  policy  in  Church  and  State.  The 
leaders,  though  warned  by  Somers,  fancied  that  they  would 
strengthen  their  position  by  attacking  the  defeated  enemy. 
The  prosecution  of  Sacheverell  in  the  winter  of  1 709- 10, 
if  not  directed  by  personal  spite,  was  meant  to  intimidate 
the  high-flying  Tories.  It  enabled  the  Whig  leaders  to 
indulge  in  a  vast  quantity  of  admirable  constitutional 
rhetoric ;  but  it  supplied  the  High  Church  party  with  a 
martyr  and  a  cry,  and  gave  the  needed  impetus  to  the 
growing  discontent.      The  Queen    took  heart   to   revolt 


80  SWIFT.  [chap. 

against  the  Marlboronghs ;  the  Whig  Ministry  were  turn- 
ed out  of  office;  Harley  became  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer in  August ;  and  the  Parliament  was  dissolved  in 
September,  IVIO,  to  be  replaced  in  November  by  one  in 
which  the  Tories  had  an  overwhelming  majority. 

We  are  left  to  guess  at  the  feelings  with  which  Swift 
contemplated  these  changes.  Their  effect  upon  his  per- 
sonal prospects  was  still  problematical.  In  spite  of  his 
wrathful  retirement,  there  was  no  open  breach  between 
him  and  the  Whigs.  He  had  no  personal  relations  with 
the  new  possessors  of  power.  Harley  and  St.  John,  the 
two  chiefs,  were  unknown  to  him.  And,  according  to  his 
own  statement,  he  started  for  England  once  more  with 
great  reluctance  in  order  again  to  take  up  the  weary  first- 
fruits  negociation.  Wharton,  whose  hostility  had  inter- 
cepted the  proposed  bounty,  went  with  his  party,  and  was 
succeeded  by  the  High  Church  Duke  of  Ormond.  The 
political  aspects  were  propitious  for  a  renewed  application, 
and  Swift's  previous  employment  pointed  him  out  as  the 
most  desirable  agent. 

And  now  Swift  suddenly  comes  into  full  light.  For 
two  or  three  years  we  can  trace  his  movements  day  by 
day;  follow  the  development  of  his  hopes  and  fears; 
and  see  him  more  clearly  than  he  could  be  seen  by  al- 
most any  of  his  contemporaries.  The  famous  Journal  to 
Stella — a  series  of  letters  written  to  Esther  Johnson  and 
Mrs.  Dingley,  from  September,  1710,  till  April,  1713 — is 
the  main  and  central  source  of  information.  Before  tell- 
ing the  story  a  word  or  two  may  be  said  of  the  nature  of 
this  document,  one  of  the  most  interesting  that  ever 
threw  light  upon  the  history  of  a  man  of  genius.  The 
Journal  is  one  of  the  very  few  that  were  clearly  written 
without  the  faintest  thought  of  publication.     There  is  no 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMIXISTRATION.  81 

indication  of  any  such  intention  in  the  Journal  to  Stella, 
It  never  occurred  to  Swift  that  it  could  ever  be  seen  by 
any  but  the  persons  primarily  interested.  The  journal 
rather  shuns  politics;  they  will  not  interest  his  corre- 
spondent, and  he  is  afraid  of  the  post-office  clerks — then 
and  long  afterwards  often  employed  as  spies.  Inter- 
views with  ministers  have  scarcely  more  prominence  than 
the  petty  incidents  of  his  daily  life.  We  are  told  that  he 
discussed  business,  but  the  discussion  is  not  reported. 
Much  more  is  omitted  which  might  have  been  of  the 
highest  interest.  We  hear  of  meetings  with  Addison ; 
not  a  phrase  of  Addison's  is  vouchsafed  to  us ;  we  go  to 
the  door  of  Harley  or  St.  John ;  we  get  no  distinct  vision 
of  the  men  who  were  the  centres  of  all  observation.  Nor, 
again,  are  there  any  of  those  introspective  passages  which 
give  to  some  journals  the  interest  of  a  confession.  What, 
then,  is  the  interest  of  the  Journal  to  Stella?  One 
element  of  strange  and  singular  fascination,  to  be  con- 
sidered hereafter,  is  the  prattle  with  his  correspondent. 
For  the  rest,  our  interest  depends  in  great  measure  upon 
the  reflections  with  which  we  must  ourselves  clothe  the 
bare  skeleton  of  facts.  In  reading  the  Journal  to  Stella 
we  may  fancy  ourselves  waiting  in  a  parliamentary  lobby 
during  an  excited  debate.  One  of  the  chief  actors  hurries 
out  at  intervals ;  pours  out  a  kind  of  hasty  bulletin ;  tells 
of  some  thrilling  incident,  or  indicates  some  threatening 
symptom ;  more  frequently  he  seeks  to  relieve  his  anxie- 
ties by  indulging  in  a  little  personal  gossip,  and  only  in- 
terjects such  comments  upon  politics  as  can  be  compressed 
into  a  hasty  ejaculation,  often,  as  may  be  supposed,  of  the 
imprecatory  kind.  Yet  he  unconsciously  betrays  his 
hopes  and  fears;  he  is  fresh  from  the  thick  of  the  fight, 
and  we  perceive  that  his  nerves  are  still  quivering,  and 


82  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

that  his  phrases  are  glowing  with  the  ardour  of  the  strug- 
gle. Hopes  and  fears  are  long  since  faded,  and  the  strug- 
gle itself  is  now  but  a  war  of  phantoms.  Yet,  with  the 
help  of  the  Journal  and  contemporary  documents,  we  can 
revive  for  the  moment  the  decaying  images,  and  cheat 
ourselves  into  the  momentary  persuasion  that  the  fate  of 
the  world  depends  upon  Harley's  success,  as  we  now  hold 
it  to  depend  upon  Mr.  Gladstone's. 

Swift  reached  London  on  September  7,  1710;  the  po- 
litical revolution  was  in  full  action,  though  Parliament 
was  not  yet  dissolved.  The  Whigs  were  "  ravished  to 
see  him ;"  they  clutched  at  him,  he  says,  like  drowning 
men  at  a  twig,  and  the  great  men  made  him  their 
"  clumsy  apologies."  Godolphin  was  "  short,  dry,  and 
morose ;"  Somers  tried  to  make  explanations,  which  Swift 
received  with  studied  coldness.  The  ever-courteous  Hali- 
fax gave  him  dinners,  and  asked  him  to  drink  to  the 
resurrection  of  the  Whigs,  which  Swift  refused  unless  he 
would  add  "  to  their  reformation."  Halifax  persevered  in 
his  attentions,  and  was  alv/ays  entreating  him  to  go  down 
to  Hampton  Court;  "which  will  cost  me  a  guinea  to  his 
servants,  and  twelve  shillings  coach  hire,  and  I  will  see 
him  hanged  first."  Swift,  however,  retained  his  old 
friendship  with  the  wits  of  the  party ;  dined  with  Addi- 
son at  his  retreat  in  Chelsea,  and  sent  a  trifle  or  two  to 
tlie  Tatler.  The  elections  began  in  October;  Swift  had 
to  drive  through  a  rabble  of  Westminster  electors,  judi- 
ciously agreeing  with  their  sentiments  to  avoid  dead  cats 
and  broken  glasses ;  and  though  Addison  was  elected  ("  I 
believe,"  says  Swift,  "if  he  had  a  mind  to  be  chosen 
king,  he  would  hardly  be  refused"),  the  Tories  were  tri- 
umphant in  every  direction.  And,  meanwhile,  the  Tory 
leaders  were  delightfully  civil. 


Y.]  THE  HAKLEY  ADMINISTRATIOX.  83 

On  the  4th  of  October  Swift  was  introduced  to  Harley, 
getting  himself  described  (with  undeniable  truth)  "as  a 
discontented  person,  who  was  ill  used  for  not  being  Whig 
enough."  The  poor  Whigs  lamentably  confess,  he  says, 
their  ill  usage  of  him,  "but  I  mind  them  not."  Their 
confession  came  too  late.  Harley  had  received  him  with 
open  arms,  and  won,  not  only  Swift's  adhesion,  but  his 
warm  personal  attachment.  The  fact  is  indisputable, 
though  rather  curious.  Harley  appears  to  us  as  a  shifty 
and  feeble  politician,  an  inarticulate  orator,  wanting  in 
principles  and  resolution,  who  made  it  his  avowed  and 
almost  only  rule  of  conduct  that  a  politician  should  live 
from  hand  to  mouth. ^  Yet  his  prolonged  influence  in 
Parliament  seems  to  indicate  some  personal  attraction, 
which  was  perceptible  to  his  contemporaries,  though  rather 
puzzling  to  ns.  All  Swift's  panegyrics  leave  the  secret  in 
obscurity.  Harley  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  eminently 
respectable  and  decorously  religious,  amiable  in  personal 
intercourse,  and  able  to  say  nothing  in  such  a  way  as  to 
suggest  profundity  instead  of  emptiness.  His  reputation 
as  a  party  manager  was  immense ;  and  is  partly  justified 
by  his  quick  recognition  of  Swift's  extraordinary  qualifi- 
cations. He  had  inferior  scribblers  in  his  pay,  including, 
as  we  remember  with  regret,  the  shifty  Defoe.  But  he 
wanted  a  man  of  genuine  ability  and  character.  Some 
months  later  the  ministers  told  Swift  that  they  had  been 
afraid  of  none  but  him,  and  resolved  to  have  him. 

They  got  him.  Harley  had  received  him  "  with  the 
greatest  kindness  and  respect  imaginable."  Three  days 
later  (October  7)  the  first-fruits  business  is  discussed,  and 
Harley  received  the  proposals  as  warmly  as  became  a 
friend  of  the  Church,  besides  overwhelming  Swift  with 
1  S\Yift  to  King,  July  12,  1711. 


84  SWIFT.  [chap. 

civilities.  Swift  is  to  be  introduced  to  St.  John ;  to  dine 
with  Hai'ley  next  Tuesday ;  and,  after  an  interview  of 
four  hours,  the  minister  sets  him  down  at  St.  James's 
Coffee-house  in  a  hackney  coach.  "  All  this  is  odd  and 
comical !"  exclaims  Swift ;  "  he  knew  my  Christian  name 
very  well,"  and,  as  we  hear  next  day,  begged  Swift  to  come 
to  him  often,  but  not  to  his  lev6e :  *'  that  was  not  a  place 
for  friends  to  meet."  On  the  10th  of  October,  within  a 
week  from  the  first  introduction,  Harley  promises  to  get 
the  first-fruits  business,  over  which  the  Whigs  had  haggled 
for  years,  settled  by  the  following  Sunday.  Swift's  exul- 
tation breaks  out.  On  the  14th  he  declares  that  he  stands 
ten  times  better  with  the  new  people  than  ever  he  did  with 
the  old,  and  is  forty  times  more  caressed.  The  triumph  is 
sharpened  by  revenge.  Nothing,  he  says,  of  the  sort  was 
ever  compassed  so  soon  ;  "  and  purely  done  by  my  per- 
sonal credit  with  Mr.  Harley,  who  is  so  excessively  obliging 
that  I  know  not  what  to  make  of  it,  unless  to  show  the 
rascals  of  the  other  side  that  they  used  a  man  unworthily 
who  deserved  better."  A  passage  on  November  8  sums  up 
his  sentiments.  "  Why,"  he  says  in  answer  to  something 
from  Stella,  "  should  the  Whigs  think  I  came  from  Ire- 
land to  leave  them  ?  Sure  my  journey  was  no  secret !  I 
protest  sincerely,  I  did  all  I  could  to  hinder  it,  as  the  Dean 
can  tell  you,  though  now  I  do  not  repent  it.  But  who  the 
devil  cares  what  they  think  ?  Am  I  under  obligations  in 
the  least  to  any  of  them  all  ?  Rot  them  for  ungrateful  dogs ; 
I  will  make  them  repent  their  usage  before  I  leave  this 
place."  The  thirst  for  vengeance  may  not  be  edifying ; 
the  political  zeal  was  clearly  not  of  the  purest;  but,  in 
truth.  Swift's  party  prejudices  and  his  personal  resent- 
ments arc  fused  into  indissoluble  unity.  Hatred  of  Whig 
principles  and  resentment  of  Whig  "  ill  usage  "  of  himself, 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  85 

are  one  and  the  same  thing.  Meanwhile,  Swift  was  able  (on 
November  4)  to  announce  his  triumph  to  the  Archbishop. 
He  was  greatly  annoyed  by  an  incident  of  which  he  must 
also  have  seen  the  humorous  side.  The  Irish  bishops  had 
bethought  themselves  after  Swift's  departure  that  he  was 
too  much  of  a  Whig  to  be  an  effective  solicitor.  They 
proposed,  therefore,  to  take  the  matter  out  of  his  hands 
and  apply  to  Ormond,  the  new  Lord  Lieutenant.  Swift 
replied  indignantly ;  the  thing  was  done,  however,  and  he 
took  care  to  let  it  be  known  that  the  whole  credit  belonged 
to  Harley,  and  of  course,  in  a  subordinate  sense,  to  himself. 
Official  formalities  were  protracted  for  months  longer,  and 
formed  one  excuse  for  Swift's  continued  absence  from  Ire- 
land; but  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  with  the  matter 
further. 

Swift^s  uirprecedented  leap  into  favour  meant  more  than 
a  temporary  success.  The  intimacy  with  Harley  and  with 
St.  John  rapidly  developed.  "Within  a  few  months  Swift 
had  forced  his  way  into  the  very  innermost  circle  of 
official  authority.  A  notable  quarrel  seems  to  have  given 
the  final  impulse  to  his  career.  In  February,  l7ll,  Har- 
ley offered  him  a  fifty-pound  note.  This  was  virtually 
to  treat  him  as  a  hireling  instead  of  an  ally.  Swift  re- 
sented the  offer  as  an  intolerable  affront.  He  refused  to 
be  reconciled  without  ample  apology  and  after  long  en- 
treaties. His  pride  was  not  appeased  for  ten  days,  when 
the  reconciliation  was  sealed  by  an  invitation  from  Harley 
to  a  Saturday  dinner.^  On  Saturdays  the  Lord  Keeper 
(Harcourt)  and  the  Secretary   of  State  (St.  John)  dined 

*  These  dinners,  it  may  be  noticed,  seem  to  have  been  held  on 
Thursdays  when  Harley  had  to  attend  the  court  at  Windsor.  This 
may  lead  to  some  confusion  with  the  Brothers'  Club,  which  met  on 
Thursdays  during  the  parliamentary  session. 


86  SWIFT.  [chap. 

alone  with  Harley  ;  "  and  at  last,"  says  Swift,  in  reporting 
the  event,  "  they  have  consented  to  let  me  among  them  on 
that  day."  He  goes  next  day,  and  already  chides  Lord 
Rivers  for  presuming  to  intrude  into  the  sacred  circle. 
"  They  call  me  nothing  but  Jonathan,"  he  adds ;  "  and  I 
said  I  believed  they  would  leave  me  Jonathan,  as  they 
found  me."  These  dinners  were  continued,  though  they 
became  less  select.  Harley  called  Saturday  his  "  whip- 
ping-day," and  Swift  was  the  heartiest  wielder  of  the 
lash.  From  the  same  February,  Swift  began  to  dine 
regularly  with  St.  John  every  Sunday ;  and  we  may  note 
it  as  some  indication  of  the  causes  of  his  later  preference 
of  Harley,  that  on  one  occasion  he  has  to  leave  St.  John 
early.  The  company,  he  says,  were  in  constraint,  because 
he  would  suffer  no  man  to  swear  or  talk  indecently  in  his 
presence. 

Swift  had  thus  conquered  the  ministry  at  a  blow.  AVhat 
services  did  he  render  in  exchange  ?  His  extraordinary  in- 
fluence seems  to  have  been  due  in  a  measure  to  sheer  force 
of  personal  ascendency.  No  man  could  come  into  contact 
with  Swift  without  feeling  that  magnetic  influence.  But 
he  was  also  doing  a  more  tangible  service.  In  thus  ad- 
mitting Swift  to  their  intimacy  Harley  and  St.  John  were, 
in  fact,  paying  homage  to  the  rising  power  of  the  pen. 
Political  writers  had  hitherto  been  hirelings,  and  often  lit- 
tle better  than  spies.  No  preceding,  and,  we  may  add,  no 
succeeding,  writer  ever  achieved  such  a  position  by  such 
means.  The  press  has  become  more  powerful  as  a  whole, 
but  no  particular  representative  of  the  press  has  made  such 
a  leap  into  power.  Swift  came  at  the  time  when  the  in- 
fluence of  political  writing  was  already  great,  and  when 
the  personal  favour  of  a  prominent  minister  could  still 
work  miracles.     Harley  made  him  a  favourite  of  the  old 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMLNISTRATION.  87 

stamp,  to  reward  his  supremacy  in  the  use  of  the  new 
"weapon. 

Swift  had  begun  in  October  by  avenging  himself  upon 
Godolphin's  coldness,  in  a  copy  of  Hudibrastic  verses  about 
the  virtues  of  Sid  Hamet  the  magician's  rod — that  is,  the 
Treasurer's  staff  of  office — which  had  a  wonderful  success. 
He  fell  savagely  upon  the  hated  Wharton  not  long  after, 
in  what  he  calls  "  a  damned  libellous  pamphlet,"  of  which 
2000  copies  were  sold  in  two  days.  Libellous,  indeed,  is 
a  faint  epithet  to  describe  a  production  which,  if  its  state- 
ments be  true,  proves  that  Wharton  deserved  to  be  hunted 
from  society.  Charges  of  lying,  treachery,  atheism,  Pres- 
byterianism,  debauchery,  indecency,  shameless  indifference 
to  his  own  reputation  and  his  wife's,  the  vilest  corruption 
and  tyranny  in  his  government,  are  piled  upon  his  victim 
as  thickly  as  they  will  stand.  Swift  does  not  expect  to 
sting  Wharton.  "  I  neither  love  nor  hate  him,"  he  says. 
"  If  I  see  him  after  this  is  published  he  will  tell  me  *  that 
he  is  damnably  mauled ;'  and  then,  with  the  easiest  transi- 
tion in  the  world,  ask  about  the  weather  or  the  time  of 
day."  Wharton  might  possibly  think  that  abuse  of  this 
kind  might  almost  defeat  itself  by  its  own  virulence.  But 
Swift  had  already  begun  writings  of  a  more  statesmanlike 
and  effective  kind. 

A  paper  war  was  already  raging  when  Swift  came  to 
London.  The  Examiner  had  been  started  by  St  John, 
with  the  help  of  Atterbury,  Prior,  and  others ;  and  op- 
posed for  a  short  time  by  Addison,  in  the  Whig  Exami- 
ner. Harley,  after  granting  the  first-fruits,  had  told  Swift 
that  the  great  want  of  the  ministry  was  "  some  good  pen," 
to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  party.  The  Examiner,  how- 
ever, was  in  need  of  a  firmer  and  more  regular  manager ; 
and  Swift  took  it  in  hand,  his  first  weekly  article  appear- 
5 


88  SWIFT.  [chap. 

ing  November  2,  1710,  his  last  on  June  14,  1711.  His 
Examiners  achieved  an  immediate  and  unprecedented  suc- 
cess. And  yet,  to  say  the  truth,  a  modern  reader  is  apt  to 
find  them  decidedly  heavy.  No  one,  indeed,  can  fail  to 
perceive  the  masculine  sense,  the  terseness  and  precision 
of  the  utterance.  And  yet  many  writings  which  produced 
less  effect  are  far  more  readable  now.  The  explanation  is 
simple,  and  applies  to  most  of  Swift's  political  writings. 
They  are  all  rather  acts  than  words.  They  are  blows 
struck  in  a  party  contest,  and  their  merit  is  to  be  gauged 
by  their  effect.  Swift  cares  nothing  for  eloquence,  or  log- 
ic, or  invective — and  little,  it  must  be  added,  for  veracity — 
so  long  as  he  hits  his  mark.  To  judge  him  by  a  merely 
literary  standard  is  to  judge  a  fencer  by  the  grace  of  his 
attitudes.  Some  high  literary  merits  are  implied  in  ef- 
ficiency, as  real  grace  is  necessary  to  efficient  fencing ;  but, 
in  either  case,  a  clumsy  blow  which  reaches  the  heart  is 
better  than  the  most  dexterous  flourish  in  the  air.  Swift's 
eye  is  always  on  the  end,  as  a  good  marksman  looks  at 
nothing  but  the  target. 

What,  then,  is  Swift's  aim  in  the  Examiner?  Mr.  King- 
lake  has  told  us  how  a  great  journal  throve  by  discover- 
ing what  was  the  remark  that  was  on  every  one's  lips,  and 
making  the  remark  its  own.  Swift  had  the  more  digni- 
fied task  of  really  striking  the  keynote  for  his  party.  He 
was  to  put  the  ministerial  theory  into  that  form  in  which 
it  might  seem  to  be  the  inevitable  utterance  of  strong 
common-sense.  Harley's  supporters  were  to  see  in  Swift's 
phrases  just  what  they  would  themselves  have  said — if 
they  had  been  able.  The  shrewd,  sturdy,  narrow  preju- 
dices of  the  average  Englishman  were  to  be  pressed  into 
the  service  of  the  ministry,  by  showing  how  admirably 
tliey  could  be  clothed  in  the  ministerial  formulas. 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  89 

The  real  question,  again,  as  Swift  saw,  was  the  question 
of  peace.  Whig  and  Tory,  as  he  said  afterwards,*  were 
really  obsolete  words.  The  true  point  at  issue  was  peace 
or  war.  The  purpose,  therefore,  was  to  take  up  his 
ground  so  that  peace  might  be  represented  as  the  natural 
policy  of  the  Church  or  Tory  party,  and  war  as  the  natu- 
ral fruit  of  the  selfish  Whigs.  It  was  necessary,  at  the 
same  time,  to  show  that  this  was  not  the  utterance  of 
high-flying  Toryism  or  downright  Jacobitism,  but  the 
plain  dictate  of  a  cool  and  impartial  judgment.  He  was 
not  to  prove  but  to  take  for  granted  that  the  war  had  be- 
come intolerably  burdensome ;  and  to  express  the  grow- 
ing wish  for  peace  in  terms  likely  to  conciliate  the  great- 
est number  of  supporters.  He  was  to  lay  down  the  plat- 
form which  could  attract  as  many  as  possible,  both  of  the 
zealous  Tories  and  of  the  lukewarm  Whigs. 

Measured  by  their  fitness  for  this  end,  the  Examiners 
are  admirable.  Their  very  fitness  for  the  end  implies  the 
absence  of  some  qualities  which  would  have  been  more 
attractive  to  posterity.  Stirring  appeals  to  patriotic  sen- 
timent may  suit  a  Chatham  rousing  a  nation  to  action ; 
but  Swift's  aim  is  to  check  the  extravagance  in  the  name 
of  selfish  prosaic  prudence.  The  philosophic  reflections 
of  Burke,  had  Swift  been  capable  of  such  reflection,  would 
have  flown  above  the  heads  of  his  hearers.  Even  the 
polished  and  elaborate  invective  of  Junius  would  have 
been  out  of  place.  No  man,  indeed,  was  a  greater  master 
of  invective  than  Swift.  He  shows  it  in  the  JExaminers 
by  onslaughts  upon  the  detested  Wharton.  He  shows, 
too,  that  he  is  not  restrained  by  any  scruples  when  it 
comes  in  his  way  to  attack  his  old  patrons,  and  he  adopts 
the  current  imputations  upon  their  private  character.  He 
»  Letter  to  a  Whig  Lord,  1'712. 


90  SWIFT.  [chap. 

could  roundly  accuse  Cowper  of  bigamy,  and  Somers — 
the  Somers  whom  he  had  elaborately  praised  some  years 
before  in  the  dedication  to  the  Tale  of  a  Tub — of  the 
most  abominable  perversion  of  justice.  But  these  are 
taunts  thrown  out  by  the  way.  Tiie  substance  of  the 
articles  is  not  invective,  but  profession  of  political  faith. 
One  great  name,  indeed,  is  of  necessity  assailed.  Marl- 
borough's fame  was  a  tower  of  strength  for  the  Whigs. 
His  duchess  and  his  colleagues  had  fallen ;  but  whilst  war 
was  still  raging  it  seemed  impossible  to  dismiss  the  great- 
est living  oommander.  Yet  whilst  Marlborough  was  still 
in  power  his  influence  might  be  used  to  bring  back  his 
party.  Swift's  treatment  of  this  great  adversary  is  signif- 
icant, lie  constantly  took  credit  for  having  suppressed 
many  attacks*  upon  Marlborough,  He  was  convinced 
that  it  would  be  dangerous  for  the  country  to  dismiss  a 
general  whose  very  name  carried  victory.*  He  felt  that  it 
was  dangerous  for  the  party  to  make  an  unreserved  attack 
upon  the  popular  hero.  Lord  Rivers,  he  says,  cursed  the 
Examiner  to  him  for  speaking  civilly  of  Marlborough; 
and  St.  John,  upon  hearing  of  this,  replied  that  if  the 
counsels  of  such  men  as  Rivers  were  taken,  the  ministry 
*'  would  be  blown  up  in  twenty-four  hours."  Yet  Marl- 
borough was  the  war  personified,  and  the  way  to  victory 
lay  over  Marlborough's  body.  Nor  had  Swift  any  regard 
for  the  man  himself,  who,  he  says,'  is  certainly  a  vile  man, 
and  has  no  sort  of  merit  except  the  military — as  "  covet- 
ous as  hell,  and  as  ambitious  as  the  prince  of  it."*  The 
whole  case  of  the  ministry  implied  the  condemnation  of 
Marlborough.  Most  modern  historians  would  admit  that 
continuance  of  the  war  could  at  this  time  be  desired  only 

•  Journal  to  Stella,  Feb.  6, 1712,  and  Jan.  8  and  25, 1712. 
'76.,  Jan.  7, 1711.       3 /^^..^jan.  21,1^712.       «  76.,  Dec.  31, 1710. 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  91 

by  fanatics  or  interested  persons.  A  psychologist  might 
amuse  himself  by  inquiring  what  were  the  actual  motives 
of  its  advocates;  in  what  degrees  personal  ambition,  a 
misguided  patriotism,  or  some  more  sordid  passions  were 
blended.  But  in  the  ordinary  dialect  of  political  warfare 
there  is  no  room  for  such  refinements.  The  theory  of 
Swift  and  Swift's  patrons  was  simple.  The  war  was  the 
creation  of  the  Whig  "  ring ;"  it  was  carried  on  for  their 
own  purposes  by  the  stock-jobbers  and  "monied  men," 
whose  rise  -  was  a  new  political  phenomenon,  and  who 
had  introduced  the  diabolical  contrivance  of  public  debts. 
The  landed  interest  and  the  Church  had  been  hoodwinked 
too  long  by  the  union  of  corrupt  interests  supported  by 
Dutchmen,  Scotchmen^  Dissenters,  freethinkers,  and  other 
manifestations  of  the  evil  principle.  Marlborough  was 
the  head  and  patron  of  the  whole.  And  what  was  Marl- 
borough's motive?  The  answer  was  simple.  It  was 
that  which  has  been  assigned,  with  even  more  emphasis, 
by  Macaulay — avarice.  The  27th  Examiner  (February 
8,  1711)  probably  contains  the  compliments  to  which 
Rivers  objected.  Swift,  in  fact,  admits  that  Marlborough 
had  all  the  great  qualities  generally  attributed  to  him ; 
but  all  are  spoilt  by  this  fatal  blemish.  How  far  the  ac- 
cusation was  true  matters  little.  It  is  put  at  least  with 
force  and  dignity,  and  it  expressed  in  the  pithiest  shape 
Swift's  genuine  conviction,  that  the  war  now  meant  cor- 
rupt self-interest.  Invective,  as  Swift  knew  well  enough 
in  his  cooler  moments,  is  a  dangerous  weapon,  apt  to  re- 
coil on  the  assailant  unless  it  carries  conviction.  The 
attack  on  Marlborough  does  not  betray  personal  ani- 
mosity, but  the  deliberate  and  the  highly  plausible  judg- 
ment of  a  man  determined  to  call  things  by  their  right 
names,  and  not  to  be  blinded  by  military  glory. 


92  SWIFT.  [chap. 

This,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  points  upon  which  Swift's 
Toryism  was  nnlike  that  of  some  later  periods.  He 
always  disliked  and  despised  soldiers  and  their  trade. 
"  It  will  no  doubt  be  a  mighty  comfort  to  our  grand- 
children," he  says  in  another  pamphlet,^  "  when  they  see 
a  few  rags  hung  up  in  Westminster  Hall  which  cost  a 
hundred  millions,  whereof  they  are  paying  the  arrears, 
to  boast  as  beggars  do  that  their  grandfathers  were  rich 
and  great."  And  in  other  respects  he  has  some  right  to 
claim  the  adhesion  of  thorough  Whigs.  His  personal  at- 
tacks, indeed,  upon  the  party  have  a  questionable  sound. 
In  his  zeal  he  constantly  forgets  that  the  corrupt  ring 
which  he  denounces  were  the  very  men  from  whom  he 
expected  preferment.  "  I  well  remember,"  he  says '  else- 
where, "  the  clamours  often  raised  during  the  late  reign 
of  that  party  (the  Whigs)  against  the  leaders  by  those 
who  thought  their  merits  were  not  rewarded;  and  they 
had,  no  doubt,  reason  on  their  side,  because  it  is,  no  doubt, 
a  misfortune  to  forfeit  honour  and  conscience  for  noth- 
ing"— rather  an  awkward  remark  from  a  man  who  was 
calling  Somers  "a  false,  deceitful  rascal"  for  not  giving 
him  a  bishopric !  His  eager  desire  to  make  the  "  un- 
grateful dogs"  repent  their  ill  usage  of  him  prompts 
attacks  which  injure  his  own  character  with  that  of  his 
former  associates.  But  he  has  some  ground  for  saying 
that  Whigs  have  changed  their  principles,  in  the  sense 
that  their  dislike  of  prerogative  and  of  standing  armies 
had  curiously  declined  when  the  Crown  and  the  army 
came  to  be  on  their  side.  Their  enjoyment  of  power 
had  made  them  soften  some  of  the  prejudices  learnt  in 
days  of  depression.     Swift's  dislike  of  what  we  now  call 

*  Conduct  of  the  Allies.  "  Advice  to  October  Club. 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  98 

"militarism"  really  went  deeper  than  any  party  senti- 
ment ;  and  in  that  sense,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  it  had 
really  most  affinity  with  a  Radicalism  which  would  have 
shocked  Whigs  and  Tories  alike.  But  in  this  particular 
case  it  fell  in  with  the  Tory  sentiment.  The  masculine 
vigour  of  the  Examiners  served  the  ministry,  who  were 
scarcely  less  in  danger  from  the  excessive  zeal  of  their 
more  bigoted  followers  than  from  the  resistance  of  the 
"Whig  minority.  The  pig-headed  country  squires  had 
formed  an  October  Club,  to  muddle  themselves  with  beer 
and  politics,  and  hoped  —  good,  honest  souls  —  to  drive 
ministers  into  a  genuine  attack  on  the  corrupt  practices 
of  their  predecessors.  All  Harley's  skill  in  intriguing  and 
wire-pulling  would  be  needed.  The  ministry,  said  Swift 
(on  March  4),  "stood  like  an  isthmus"  between  Whigs 
and  violent  Tories.  lie  trembled  for  the  result.  They 
are  able  seamen,  but  the  tempest  "  is  too  great,  the  ship 
too  rotten,  and  the  crew  all  against  them."  Somers  had 
been  twice  in  the  Queen's  closet.  The  Duchess  of  Som- 
erset, who  had  succeeded  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 
might  be  trying  to  play  Mrs.  Masham's  game.  Harley, 
"though  the  most  fearless  man  alive,"  seemed  to  be 
nervous,  and  was  far  from  well.  "Pray  God  preserve 
his  health,"  says  Swift;  "everything  depends  upon  it." 
Four  days  later  Swift  is  in  an  agony.  "My  heart," 
he  exclaims,  "  is  almost  broken."  Harley  had  been  stab- 
bed by  Guiscard  (March  8,  1711)  at  the  council-board. 
Swift's  letters  and  journals  show  an  agitation  in  which 
personal  affection  seems  to  be  even  stronger  than  polit- 
ical anxiety.  "Pray  pardon  my  distraction,"  he  says  to 
Stella,  in  broken  sentences.  "I  now  think  of  all  his 
kindness  to  me.  The  poor  creature  now  lies  stabbed  in 
his  bed   by  a  desperate   French    Popish  villain.      Good 


94  SWIFT.  [(HAP. 

night,  and  God  bless  you  both,  and  pity  me;  I  want 
it."  He  wrote  to  King  under  the  same  excitement. 
Harley,  he  says,  "has  always  treated  me  with  the  ten- 
derness of  a  parent,  and  never  refused  me  any  favour  I 
asked  for  a  friend ;  therefore  I  hope  your  Grace  will  ex- 
cuse the  character  of  this  letter."  He  apologizes  again 
in  a  postscript  for  his  confusion ;  it  must  be  imputed  to 
the  "  violent  pain  of  mind  I  am  in — greater  than  ever  I 
felt  in  my  life."  The  danger  was  not  over  for  three 
weeks.  The  chief  effect  seems  to  have  been  that  Harley 
became  popular  as  the  intended  victim  of  an  hypothetical 
Popish  conspiracy ;  he  introduced  an  applauded  financial 
scheme  in  Parliament  after  his  recovery,  and  was  soon 
afterwards  made  Earl  of  Oxford  by  way  of  consolation. 
"This  man,"  exclaimed  Swift,  "has  grown  by  persecu- 
tions, turnings  out,  and  stabbings.  What  waiting  and 
crowding  and  bowing  there  will  be  at  his  levee !" 

Swift  had  meanwhile  (April  26)  retired  to  Chelsea  "for 
the  air,"  and  to  have  the  advantage  of  a  compulsory  walk 
into  town  (two  miles,  or  5748  steps,  each  way,  he  calcu- 
lates). He  was  liable,  indeed,  to  disappointment  on  a 
rainy  day, when  "all  the  three  stage-coaches"  were  taken 
up  by  the  "cunning  natives  of  Chelsea;"  but  he  got  a 
lift  to  town  in  a  gentleman's  coach  for  a  shilling.  He 
bathed  in  the  river  on  the  hot  nights,  with  his  Irish  ser- 
vant, Patrick,  standing  on  the  bank  to  warn  off  passing 
boats.  The  said  Patrick,  who  is  always  getting  drunk, 
whom  Swift  cannot  find  it  in  his  heart  to  dismiss  in 
England,  who  atones  for  his  general  carelessness  and 
lying  by  buying  a  linnet  for  Dingley,  making  it  wilder 
than  ever  in  his  attempts  to  tame  it,  is  a  characteristic 
figure  in  the  journal.  In  June  Swift  gets  ten  days'  holi- 
day at  Wycombe,  and  in  the  summer  he  goes  down  pretty 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATIOX.  95 

often  with  the  ministers  to  Windsor.  He  came  to  town 
in  two  hours  and  forty  minutes  on  one  occasion :  "  twenty 
miles  are  nothing  here."  The  journeys  are  described  in 
one  of  the  happiest  of  his  occasional  poems : 

"  'Tis  (let  me  see)  three  years  or  more 
(October  next  it  will  be  four) 
Since  Harley  bid  me  first  attend, 
And  chose  me  for  an  humble  friend : 
Would  take  me  in  his  coach  to  chat, 
And  question  me  of  this  or  that : 
As  'What's  o'clock?'  and  'How's  the  wind?' 
'  Whose  chariot's  that  we  left  behind  ?' 
Or  gravely  try  to  read  the  lines 
Writ  underneath  the  country  signs. 
Or, '  Have  you  nothing  new  to-day 
From  Pope,  from  Parnell,  or  from  Gay  ?' 
Such  tattle  often  entertains 
My  lord  and  me  as  far  as  Staines, 
As  once  a  week  we  travel  down 
To  Windsor,  and  again  to  town, 
Where  all  that  passes  inter  nos 
Might  be  proclaimed  at  Charing  Cross." 

And  when,  it  is  said,  St.  John  was  disgusted  by  the  frivo- 
lous amusements  of  his  companions,  and  his  political  dis- 
courses might  be  interrupted  by  Harley's  exclamation, 
"  Swift,  I  am  up ;  there's  a  cat " — the  first  who  saw  a  cat 
or  an  old  woman  winning  the  game. 

Swift  and  Harley  were  soon  playing  a  more  exciting 
game.  Prior  had  been  sent  to  France,  to  renew  peace 
negotiations,  with  elaborate  mystery.  Even  Swift  was 
kept  in  ignorance.  On  his  return  Prior  was  arrested  by 
oflScious  custom-house  officers,  and  the  fact  of  his  journey 
became  public.  Swift  took  advantage  of  the  general  in- 
terest by  a  pamphlet  intended  to  "  bite  the  town.**  Its 
5* 


90  SWIFT.  [chap. 

political  purpose,  according  to  Swift,  was  to  "  f urnisli  fools 
with  something  to  talk  of;"  to  draw  a  false  scent  across 
the  trail  of  the  angry  and  suspicious  Whigs.  It  seems 
difficult  to  believe  that  any  such  effect  could  be  produced 
or  anticipated ;  but  the  pamphlet,  which  purports  to  be  an 
account  of  Prior's  journey  given  by  a  French  valet,  desirous 
of  passing  himself  off  as  a  secretary,  is  an  amusing  example 
of  Swift's  power  of  grave  simulation  of  realities.  The  peace 
negotiations  brought  on  a  decisive  political  struggle.  Par- 
liament was  to  meet  in  September.  The  Whigs  resolved 
to  make  a  desperate  effort.  They  had  lost  the  House  of 
Commons,  but  were  still  strong  in  the  Peers.  The  Lords 
were  not  affected  by  the  rapid  oscillations  of  public  opin- 
ion. They  were  free  from  some  of  the  narrower  prejudices 
of  country  squires,  and  true  to  a  revolution  which  gave  the 
chief  power  for  more  than  a  century  to  the  aristocracy ; 
while  the  recent  creations  had  ennobled  the  great  Whig 
leaders,  and  filled  the  Bench  with  Low  Churchmen.  Marl- 
borough and  Godolphin  had  come  over  to  the  Whig  junto, 
and  an  additional  alliance  was  now  made.  Nottingham 
had  been  passed  over  by  Harley,  as  it  seems,  for  his  ex- 
treme Tory  principles.  In  his  wrath  he  made  an  agree- 
ment with  the  other  extreme.  By  one  of  the  most  dis- 
graceful bargains  of  party  history  Nottingham  was  to  join 
the  Whigs  in  attacking  the  peace,  whilst  the  Whigs  were 
to  buy  his  support  by  accepting  the  Occasional  Conformity 
Bill — the  favourite  High  Church  measure.  A  majority  in 
the  House  of  Lords  could  not,  indeed,  determine  the  vic- 
tory. The  Government  of  England,  says  Swift  in  1715,* 
"  cannot  move  a  step  whilst  the  House  of  Commons  con- 
tinues to  dislike  proceedings  or  persons  employed."  But 
the  plot  went  further.  The  House  of  Lords  might  bring 
*  Behaviour  of  Queen's  Ministry. 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  97 

about  a  deadlock,  as  it  had  done  before.  The  Queen,  hav- 
ing thrown  off  the  rule  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 
had  sought  safety  in  the  rule  of  two  mistresses,  Mrs. 
Masham  and  the  Duchess  of  Somerset.  The  Duchess  of 
Somerset  was  in  the  Whig  interest,  and  her  influence  with 
the  Queen  caused  the  gravest  anxiety  to  Swift  and  the  min- 
istry. She  might  induce  Anne  to  call  back  the  Whigs,  and 
in  a  new  House  of  Commons,  elected  under  a  Whig  min- 
istry wielding  the  crown  influence  and  appealing  to  the 
dread  of  a  discreditable  peace,  the  majority  might  be  re- 
versed. Meanwhile  Prince  Eugene  was  expected  to  pay  a 
visit  to  England,  bringing  fresh  proposals  for  war,  and 
stimulating  by  his  presence  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Whigs. 
Towards  the  end  of  September  the  Whigs  began  to 
pour  in  a  heavy  fire  of  pamphlets,  and  Swift  rather 
meanly  begs  the  help  of  St.  John  and  the  law.  But 
he  is  confident  of  victory.  Peace  is  certain,  and  a  peace 
"very  much  to  the  honour  and  advantage  of  England." 
The  Whigs  are  furious ;  "  but  we'll  wherret  them,  I  war- 
rant, boys."  Yet  he  has  misgivings.  The  news  comes  of 
the  failure  of  the  Tory  expedition  against  Quebec,  which 
was  to  have  anticipated  the  policy  and  the  triumphs  of 
Chatham.  Harley  only  laughs  as  usual ;  but  St.  John  is 
cruelly  vexed,  and  begins  to  suspect  his  colleagues  of  sus- 
pecting him.  Swift  listens  to  both,  and  tries  to  smooth 
matters ;  but  he  is  growing  serious.  "  I  am  half  weary  of 
them  all,"  he  exclaims,  and  begins  to  talk  of  retiring  to 
Ireland.  Harley  has  a  slight  illness,  and  Swift  is  at  once 
in  a  fright.  "  We  are  all  undone  without  him,"  he  says, 
"  so  pray  for  him,  sirrahs !"  Meanwhile,  as  the  parlia- 
mentary struggle  comes  nearer.  Swift  launches  the  pam- 
phlet which  has  been  his  summer's  work.  The  Conduct 
of  the  Allies  is  intended  to  prove  what  he  had  taken  for 


98  SWIFT.  [chap. 

granted  in  the  Examiners.  It  is  to  show,  that  is,  that  tlie 
war  has  ceased  to  be  demanded  by  national  interests.  We 
ought  always  to  have  been  auxiliaries ;  we  chose  to  become 
principals;  and  have  yet  so  conducted  the  war  that  all 
the  advantages  have  gone  to  the  Dutch.  The  explanation, 
of  course,  is  the  selfishness  or  corruption  of  the  great  Whig 
junto.  The  pamphlet,  forcible  and  terse  in  the  highest 
degree,  had  a  success  due  in  part  to  other  circumstances. 
It  was  as  much  a  state  paper  as  a  pamphlet ;  a  manifesto 
obviously  inspired  by  the  ministry,  and  containing  the 
facts  and  papers  which  were  to  serve  in  the  coming  de- 
bates. It  was  published  on  November  27 ;  on  December  1 
the  second  edition  was  sold  in  five  hours ;  and  by  the  end 
of  January  11,000  copies  had  been  sold.  The  parliament- 
ary struggle  began  on  December  7  ;  and  the  amendment  to 
the  address,  declaring  that  no  peace  could  be  safe  which 
left  Spain  to  the  Bourbons,  was  moved  by  Nottingham,  and 
carried  by  a  small  majority.  Swift  had  foreseen  this  dan- 
ger; he  had  begged  ministers  to  work  up  the  majority; 
and  the  defeat  was  due  to  Harley's  carelessness.  It  was 
Swift's  temper  to  anticipate  though  not  to  yield  to  the 
worst.  He  could  see  nothing  but  ruin.  Every  rumour 
increased  his  fears.  The  Queen  had  taken  the  hand  of 
the  Duke  of  Somerset  on  leaving  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
refused  Shrewsbury's.  She  must  be  going  over.  Swift, 
in  his  despair,  asked  St.  John  to  find  him  some  foreign 
post,  where  he  might  be  out  of  harm's  way  if  the  Whigs 
should  triumph.  St.  John  laughed  and  affected  courage, 
but  Swift  refused  to  be  comforted.  Ilarley  told  him  that 
"  all  would  be  well ;"  but  Ilarley  for  the  moment  had  lost 
his  confidence.  A  week  after  the  vote  he  looks  upon  the 
ministry  as  certainly  ruined ;  and  "  God  knows,"  he  adds, 
"  what  may  be  the  consequences."     By  degrees  a  little 


v.]  THE  IIARLEY  ADMIXISTllATION.  99 

hope  began  to  appear;  though  the  ministry,  as  Swift  still 
held,  could  expect  nothing  till  the  Duchess  of  Somerset 
was  turned  out.  By  way  of  accelerating  this  event,  he 
hit  upon  a  plan,  which  he  had  reason  to  repent,  and  which 
nothing  but  his  excitement  could  explain.  He  composed 
and  printed  one  of  his  favourite  squibs,  the  Windsor 
Prophecy,  and  though  Mrs.  Masham  persuaded  him  not  to 
publish  it,  distributed  too  many  copies  for  secrecy  to  be 
possible.  In  this  production,  now  dull  enough,  he  calls 
the  duchess  "  Carrots,"  as  a  delicate  hint  at  her  red  hair, 
and  says  that  she  murdered  her  second  husband.'  These 
statements,  even  if  true,  were  not  conciliatory;  and  it  was 
folly  to  irritate  without  injuring.  Meanwhile  reports  of 
ministerial  plans  gave  him  a  little  courage ;  and  in  a  day 
or  two  the  secret  was  out.  He  was  on  his  way  to  the 
post  on  Saturday,  December  28,  when  the  great  news 
came.  The  ministry  had  resolved  on  something  like  a 
coup  d'etat,  to  be  long  mentioned  with  horror  by  all  ortho- 
dox Whigs  and  Tories.  "  I  have  broke  open  my  letter," 
scribbled  Swift  in  a  coffee-house,  "  and  tore  it  into  the 
bargain,  to  let  you  know  that  we  are  all  safe.  The  Queen 
has  made  no  less  than  twelve  new  peers  ....  and  has 
turned  out  the  Duke  of  Somerset.  She  is  awaked  at  last, 
and  so  is  Lord  Treasurer.  I  want  nothing  now  but  to  see 
the  Duchess  out.  But  we  shall  do  without  her.  We  are 
all  extremely  happy.  Give  me  joy,  sirrahs  1"  The  Duke 
of  Somerset  was  not  out ;  but  a  greater  event  happened 

^  There  was  enough  plausibility  in  this  scandal  to  give  it  a  sting. 
The  duchess  had  left  her  second  husband,  a  Mr.  Thynne,  immediate- 
ly after  the  marriage  ceremony,  and  fled  to  Holland.  There  Count 
Coningsmark  paid  her  his  addresses,  and,  coming  to  England,  had 
Mr.  Thynne  shot  by  ruffians  in  Pall  Mall.  See  the  curious  case  in 
the  State  Trials^  vol.  ix. 


100  SWIFT.  [chap. 

within  three  days:  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  removed 
from  all  his  employments.  The  Tory  victory  was  for  the 
time  complete. 

Here,  too,  was  the  culminating  point  of  Swift's  career. 
Fifteen  months  of  energetic  effort  had  been  crowned  with 
success.  He  was  the  intimate  of  the  greatest  men  in  the 
country,  and  the  most  powerful  exponent  of  their  policy, 
No  man  in  England,  outside  the  ministry,  enjoyed 
wider  reputation.  The  ball  was  at  his  feet,  and  no  posi 
tion  open  to  a  clergyman  beyond  his  hopes.  Yet  from 
this  period  begins  a  decline.  He  continued  to  write,  pub- 
lishing numerous  squibs,  of  which  many  have  been  lost, 
and  occasionally  firing  a  gun  of  heavier  metal.  But  noth- 
ing came  from  him  having  the  authoritative  and  master- 
ly tone  of  the  Conduct  of  the  Allies.  His  health  broke 
down.  At  the  beginning  of  April,  1712,  he  was  attacked 
by  a  distressing  complaint ;  and  his  old  enemy,  giddiness, 
gave  him  frequent  alarms.  The  daily  journal  ceased,  and 
was  not  fairly  resumed  till  December,  though  its  place  is 
partly  supplied  by  occasional  letters.  The  political  con- 
test had  changed  its  character.  The  centre  of  interest  was 
transferred  to  Utrecht,  where  negotiations  began  in  Jan- 
uary, to  be  protracted  over  fifteen  months :  the  ministry 
had  to  satisfy  the  demand  for  peace,  without  shocking  the 
national  self-esteem.  Meanwhile  jealousies  were  rapidly 
developing  themselves,  which  Swift  watched  with  ever- 
growing anxiety. 

Swift's  personal  influence  remained  or  increased.  He 
drew  closer  to  Oxford,  but  was  still  friendly  with  St. 
John ;  and  to  the  public  his  position  seemed  more  im- 
posing than  ever.  Swift  was  not  the  man  to  bear  his 
honours  meekly.  In  the  early  period  of  his  acquaintance 
with  St.  John  (February  12,  1711)  he  sends  the  Prime 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATIOX.  loi 

Minister  into  the  House  of  Commons,  to  tell  the  Secretary 
of  State  that  "I  would  not  dine  with  him  if  he  dined 
late."  He  is  still  a  novice  at  the  Saturday  dinners  when 
the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury  appears :  Swift  whispers  that  he 
docs  not  like  to  see  a  stranger  among  them;  and  St. 
John  has  to  explain  that  the  Duke  has  written  for  leave. 
St.  John  then  tells  Swift  that  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 
desires  his  acquaintance.  The  Duke,  replied  Swift,  has 
not  made  sufficient  advances :  and  he  always  expects  great- 
er advances  from  men  in  proportion  to  their  rank.  Dukes 
and  great  men  yielded,  if  only  to  humour  the  pride  of 
this  audacious  parson :  and  Swift  soon  came  to  be  pes- 
tered by  innumerable  applicants,  attracted  by  his  ostenta- 
tion of  influence.  Even  ministers  applied  through  him. 
"There  is  not  one  of  them,"  he  says,  in  January,  1713, 
"  but  what  will  employ  me  as  gravely  to  speak  for  them 
to  Lord  Treasurer  as  if  I  were  their  brother  or  his."  He 
is  proud  of  the  burden  of  influence  with  the  great,  though 
he  affects  to  complain.  The  most  vivid  picture  of  Swift 
in  all  his  glory  is  in  a  familiar  passage  from  Bishop  Ken- 
nett's  diary : 

"Swift,"  says  Kennett,  in  1713,  "came  into  the  coffee-house,  and 
had  a  bow  from  everybody  but  me.  When  I  came  to  the  antecham- 
ber to  wait  before  prayers  Dr.  Swift  was  the  principal  man  of  talk 
and  business,  and  acted  as  Minister  of  Requests.  He  was  soliciting 
the  Earl  of  Arran  to  speak  to  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  to 
get  a  chaplain's  place  established  in  the  garrison  of  Hull  for  Mr. 
Fiddes,  a  clergyman  in  that  neighbourhood,  who  had  lately  been  in 
jail,  and  published  sermons  to  pay  fees.  He  was  promising  Mr. 
Thorold  to  undertake  with  my  Lord  Treasurer  that  according  to  his 
petition  he  should  obtain  a  salary  of  200^.  per  annum,  as  minister  of 
the  English  Church  at  Rotterdam.  He  stopped  F.  Gwynne,  Esq., 
going  in  with  the  red  bag  to  the  Queen,  and  told  him  aloud  he  had 
Bomething  to  say  to  him  from  my  Lord  Treasurer.     He  talked  with 


102  SWIFT.  [chap. 

the  son  of  Dr.  Davenant  to  be  sent  abroad,  and  took  out  his  pocket- 
book  and  wrote  down  several  things  as  memoranda  to  do  for  him. 
He  turned  to  the  fire,  and  took  out  his  gold  watch,  and  telling  him 
the  time  of  day,  complained  it  was  very  late.  A  gentleman  said,  *  it 
was  too  fast.*  'How  can  I  help  it,'  says  the  Doctor,  *if  the  court- 
iers give  me  a  watch  that  won't  go  right  ?'  Then  he  instructed  a 
young  nobleman  that  the  best  poet  in  England  was  Mr.  Pope  (a  Pa- 
pist), who  had  begun  a  translation  of  Homer  into  English  verse,  for 
which,  he  said,  he  must  have  them  all  subscribe.  Tor,'  says  he, 
'the  author  shall  not  begin  to  print  till  I  have  a  thousand  guineas  for 
him.'  Lord  Treasurer,  after  leaving  the  Queen,  came  through  the 
room,  beckoning  Dr.  Swift  to  follow  him ;  both  went  off  just  before 
prayers," 

There  is  undoubtedly  something  offensive  in  this  blus- 
tering self-assertion.  "  No  man,"  says  Johnson,  with  his 
usual  force,  "can  pay  a  more  servile  tribute  to  the  great 
than  by  suffering  his  liberty  in  their  presence  to  aggran- 
dize him  in  his  own  esteem."  Delicacy  was  not  Swift's 
strong  point ;  his  compliments  are  as  clumsy  as  his  in- 
vectives are  forcible ;  and  he  shows  a  certain  taint  of  vul- 
garity in  his  intercoui-se  with  social  dignitaries.  He  is, 
perhaps,  avenging  himself  for  the  humiliations  received  at 
Moor  Park.  He  has  a  Napoleonic  absence  of  magnanimity. 
He  likes  to  relish  his  triumph ;  to  accept  the  pettiest  as 
well  as  the  greatest  rewards ;  to  flaunt  his  splendours  in 
the  eyes  of  the  servile  as  well  as  to  enjoy  the  conscious- 
ness of  real  power.  But  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 
infer  that  this  ostentatiousness  of  authority  concealed  real 
servility.  Swift  preferred  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns. 
He  forced  himself  upon  ministers  by  self-assertion ;  and  he 
held  them  in  awe  of  him  as  the  lion-tamer  keeps  down  the 
latent  ferocity  of  the  wild  beast.  He  never  takes  his  eye 
off  his  subjects,  nor  lowers  his  imperious  demeanour.  He 
retained  h-is  influence,  as  Johnson  observes,  long  after  his 


T.J  THE  IIARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  103 

services  had  ceased  to  be  useful.  And  all  this  demonstra- 
tive patronage  meant  real  and  energetic  work.  We  may 
note,  for  example,  and  it  incidentally  confirms  Kennett^s 
accuracy,  that  he  was  really  serviceable  to  Davenant,^  and 
that  Fiddes  got  the  chaplaincy  at  Hull.  No  man  ever 
threw  himself  with  more  energy  into  the  service  of  his 
friends.  lie  declared  afterwards  that  in  the  days  of  his 
credit  he  had  done  fifty  times  more  for  fifty  people,  from 
whom  he  had  received  no  obligations,  than  Temple  had 
done  for  him.'  The  journal  abounds  in  proofs  that  this 
was  not  overstated.  There  is  "  Mr.  Harrison,"  for  ex- 
ample, who  has  written  "  some  mighty  pretty  things." 
Swift  takes  him  up ;  rescues  him  from  the  fine  friends 
who  are  carelessly  tempting  him  to  extravagance  ;  tries  to 
start  him  in  a  continuation  of  the  Tatler;  exults  in  getting 
him  a  secretaryship  abroad,  which  he  declares  to  be  "  the 
prettiest  post  in  Europe  for  a  young  gentleman ;"  and  is 
most  unaffectedly  and  deeply  grieved  when  the  poor  lad 
dies  of  a  fever.  He  is  carrying  100/.  to  his  young  friend, 
when  he  hears  of  his  death.  "  I  told  Parnell  I  was  afraid 
to  knock  at  the  door — my  mind  misgave  me,"  he  says.  On 
his  way  to  bring  help  to  Harrison  he  goes  to  see  a  "  poor 
poet,  one  Mr.  Diaper,  in  a  nasty  garret,  very  sick,"  and 
consoles  him  with  twenty  guineas  from  Lord  Bolingbroke. 
A  few  days  before  he  has  managed  to  introduce  Parnell  to 
Harley,  or  rather  to  contrive  it  so  that  "  the  ministry  de- 
sire to  be  acquainted  with  Parnell,  and  not  Parnell  with 
the  ministry."  His  old  schoolfellow  Congreve  was  in 
alarm  about  his  appointments.  Swift  spoke  at  once  to 
Harley,  and  went  off  immediately  to  report  his  success  to 
Congreve :  "  so,"  he  says,  "  I  have  made  a  worthy  man 

*  Letters  from  Smalridge  and  Dr.  Davenant  in  1713. 

*  Letter  to  Lord  Palraerston,  January•^29, 1726. 


104  SWIFT.  [chap. 

easy,  and  that  is  a  good  day's  work."*  One  of  the  latest 
letters  in  his  journal  refers  to  his  attempt  to  serve  his 
other  schoolfellow,  Berkeley.  "  I  will  favour  him  as 
much  as  I  can,"  he  says ;  "  this  I  think  I  am  bound  to  in 
honour  and  conscience,  to  use  all  my  little  credit  towards 
helping  forward  men  of  worth  in  the  world."  He  was 
always  helping  less  conspicuous  men  ;  and  he  prided  him- 
self, with  justice,  that  he  had  been  as  helpful  to  Whigs  as 
to  Tories.  The  ministry  complained  that  he  never  came 
to  them  "  without  a  Whig  in  his  sleeve."  Besides  his 
friend  Congreve,  he  recommended  Rowe  for  preferment, 
and  did  his  best  to  protect  Steele  and  Addison.  No  man 
of  letters  ever  laboured  more  heartily  to  promote  the  inter- 
ests of  his  fellow-craftsmen,  as  few  have  ever  had  similar 
opportunities. 

Swift,  it  is  plain,  desired  to  use  his  influence  magnifi- 
cently. He  hoped  to  make  his  reign  memorable  by  splen- 
did patronage  of  literature.  The  great  organ  of  munifi- 
cence was  the  famous  Brothers'  Club,  of  which  he  was 
the  animating  spirit.  It  was  founded  in  June,  l7ll, 
during  Swift's  absence  at  Wycombe ;  it  was  intended  to 
"  advance  conversation  and  friendship,"  and  obtain  patron- 
age for  deserving  persons.  It  was  to  include  none  but 
wits  and  men  able  to  help  wits,  and,  "  if  we  go  on  as  we 
began,"  says  Swift,  "  no  other  club  in  this  town  will  be 
worth  talking  of."  In  March,  1712,  it  consisted,  as  Swift 
tells  us,  of  nine  lords  and  ten  commoners."     It  excluded 

1  June  22,  1711. 

^  The  list,  so  far  as  I  can  make  it  out  from  references  in  the  jour- 
nal, appears  to  include  more  names.  One  or  two  had  probably  re- 
tired. The  peers  are  as  follows :  The  Dukes  of  Shrewsbury  (perhaps 
only  suggested),  Ormond,  and  Beaufort ;  Lords  Orrery,  Rivers,  Dart- 
mouth, Dupplin,  Masham,  Bathurst,  and  Lansdowne  (the  last  three 


v.]  TUE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATIOX.  105 

Harley  and  the  Lord  Keeper  (Harcourt),  apparently  as 
they  were  to  be  the  distributors  of  the  patronage ;  but  it 
inchided  St.  John  and  several  leading  ministers,  Harlcy's 
son  and  son-in-law,  and  Harcourt's  son ;  whilst  literature 
was  represented  by  Swift,  Arbuthnot,  Prior,  and  Friend,  all 
of  whom  were  more  or  less  actively  employed  by  the  min- 
istry. The  club  was,  therefore,  composed  of  the  ministry 
and  their  dependents,  though  it  had  not  avowedly  a  politi- 
cal colouring.  It  dined  on  Thursday  during  the  parlia- 
mentary session,  when  the  political  squibs  of  the  day  were 
often  laid  on  the  table,  including  Swift's  famous  Windsor 
Prophecy,  and  subscriptions  were  sometimes  collected  for 
such  men  as  Diaper  and  Harrison.  It  flourished,  however, 
for  little  more  than  the  first  season.  In  the  winter  of 
1712-'13  it  began  to  suffer  from  the  common  disease  of 
such  institutions.  Swift  began  to  complain  bitterly  of  the 
extravagance  of  the  charges.  He  gets  the  club  to  leave 
a  tavern  in  which  the  bilP  "  for  four  dishes  and  four,  first 
and  second  course,  without  wine  and  drink,"  had  been 
21/.  65.  8c?.  The  number  of  guests,  it  seems,  was  fourteen. 
Next  winter  the  charges  are  divided.  "  It  cost  me  nine- 
teen shillings  to-day  for  my  club  dinner,"  notes  Swift,  De- 
cember 18,  1712.  "I  don't  like  it."  Swift  had  a  high 
value  for  every  one  of  the  nineteen  shillings.  The  meet- 
ings became  irregular :  Harley  was  ready  to  give  promises, 
but  no  patronage ;  and  Swift's  attendance  falls  off.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  noted  that  he  found  dinners  and  suppers  full  of 
danger  to  his  health.     He  constantly  complains  of  their 

were  of  the  famous  twelve) ;  and  the  commoners  are  Swift,  Sir  R. 
Raymond,  Jack  Hill,  Disney,  Sir  "W.  Wyndham,  St,  John,  Prior,  Friend, 
Arbuthnot,  Harley  (son  of  Lord  Oxford),  and  Harcourt  (son  of  Lord 
Harcourt). 

J  February,  28, 1Y12. 


106  SWIFT.  -.  [chap. 

after-effects ;  and  partly,  perhaps,  for  that  reason  he  early 
ceases  to  frequent  coffee-houses.  Perhaps,  too,  his  con- 
tempt for  coffee-house  society,  and  the  increasing  dignity 
which  made  it  desirable  to  keep  possible  applicants  at  a 
distance,  had  much  to  do  with  this.  The  Brothers'  Club, 
however,  was  long  remembered  by  its  members,  and  in 
later  years  they  often  address  each  other  by  the  old  fra- 
ternal title. 

One  design  which  was  to  have  signalized  Swift's  period 
of  power  suggested  the  only  paper  which  he  had  ever  pub- 
lished with  his  name.  It  was  a  "  proposal  for  correcting, 
improving,  and  ascertaining  the  English  language,"  pub- 
lished in  May,  1712,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  Harley. 
The  letter  itself,  written  offhand  in  six  hours  (February  21, 
1V12), is  not  of  much  value;  but  Swift  recurs  to  the  sub- 
ject frequently  enough  to  show  that  he  really  hoped  to  be 
the  founder  of  an  English  Academy.  Had  Swift  been  his 
own  minister  instead  of  the  driver  of  a  minister,  the  proj- 
ect might  have  been  started.  The  rapid  development  of 
the  political  struggle  sent  Swift's  academy  to  the  limbo 
provided  for  such  things;  and  few  English  authors  will 
regret  the  failure  of  a  scheme  unsuited  to  our  natural  idio- 
syncrasy, and  calculated,  as  I  fancy,  to  end  in  nothing  but 
an  organization  of  pedantry. 

One  remark,  meanwhile,  recurs  which  certainly  struck 
Swift  himself.  He  says  (March  17, 1712)  that  Sacheverell, 
the  Tory  martyr,  has  come  to  him  for  patronage,  and  ob- 
serves that  when  he  left  Ireland  neither  of  them  could 
have  anticipated  such  a  relationship.  "This,"  he  adds, 
"  is  the  seventh  I  have  now  provided  for  since  I  came,  and 
can  do  nothing  for  myself."  Hints  at  a  desire  for  prefer- 
ment do  not  appear  for  some  time ;  but  as  he  is  constantly 
speaking  of  an  early  return  to  Ireland,  and  is  as  regularly 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  107 

held  back  by  the  entreaties  of  the  ministry,  there  must 
have  been  at  least  an  implied  promise.  A  hint  had  been 
given  that  he  might  be  made  chaplain  to  Harley,  when  the 
minister  became  Earl  of  Oxford.  "I  will  be  no  man's 
chaplain  alive,"  he  says.  He  remarks  about  the  same  time 
(May  23, 1711)  that  it  "would  look  extremely  little"  if 
he  returned  without  some  distinction ;  but  he  will  not  beg 
for  preferment.  The  ministry,  he  says  in  the  following 
August,  only  want  him  for  one  bit  of  business  (the  Con- 
duct of  the  Allies,  presumably).  When  that  is  done  he 
will  take  his  leave  of  them.  "  I  never  got  a  penny  from 
them  nor  expect  it."  The  only  post  for  which  he  made 
a  direct  application  was  that  of  historiographer.  He  had 
made  considerable  preparations  for  his  so-called  History 
of  the  Last  Four  Years  of  Queen  Anne,  which  appeared 
posthumously,  and  which  may  be  described  as  one  of  his 
political  pamphlets  without  the  vigour^ — a  dull  statement 
of  facts  put  together  by  a  partisan  affecting  the  historical 
character.  This  application,  however,  was  not  made  till 
April,  l7l4,  when  Swift  was  possessed  of  all  the  prefer- 
ment that  he  was  destined  to  receive.  He  considered  in 
his  haughty  way  that  he  should  be  entreated  rather  than 
entreat ;  and  ministers  were,  perhaps,  slow  to  give  hira 
anything  which  could  take  him  away  from  them.  A  secret 
influence  was  at  work  against  him.  The  Tale  of  a  Tub 
was  brought  up  against  him ;  and  imputations  upon  his 
orthodoxy  were  common.  Nottingham  even  revenged 
himself  by  describing  Swift  in  the  House  of  Lords  as  a 
divine  "  who  is  hardly  suspected  of  being  a  Christian." 

*  Its  authenticity  was  doubted,  but,  as  I  think,  quite  gratuitously, 
by  Johnson,  by  Lord  Stanhope,  and,  as  Stanhope  says,  by  Macaulay. 
The  dulness  is  easily  explicable  by  the  circumstances  of  the  compo- 
sition. 


108  SWIFT.  [ciLvp. 

Such  insinuations  were  also  turned  to  account  by  the 
Duchess  of  Somerset,  who  retained  her  influence  over 
Anne  in  spite  of  Swift's  attacks.  His  journal  in  the  win- 
ter of  1712-13  shows  growing  discontent.  In  December, 
1712,  he  resolves  to  write  no  more  till  something  is  done 
for  him.  He  will  get  under  shelter  before  he  makes  more 
enemies.  He  declares  that  he  is  "  soliciting  nothing"  (Feb- 
ruary 4,  1713),  but  he  is  growing  impatient.  Harley  is 
kinder  than  ever.     "  Mighty  kind  !"  exclaims  Swift,  "  with 

a ;  less  of  civility  and  more  of  interest ;"  or,  as  he 

puts  it  in  one  of  his  favourite  "  proverbs  "  soon  afterwards, 
"  my  grandmother  used  to  say  : 

'More  of  your  lining, 
And  less  of  your  dining.' " 

At  last  Swift,  hearing  that  he  was  again  to  be  passed  over, 
gave  a  positive  intimation  that  he  would  retire  if  nothing 
was  done ;  adding  that  he  should  complain  of  Harley  for 
nothing  but  neglecting  to  inform  him  sooner  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  his  position.^  Th<3  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  was  at 
last  promoted  to  a  bishopric,  and  Swift  appointed  to  the 
vacant  deanery.  The  warrant  was  signed  on  April  23,  and 
in  June  Swift  set  out  to  take  possession  of  his  deanery. 
It  was  no  great  prize;  he  would  have  to  pay  1000/.  for 
the  house  and  fees,  and  thus,  he  says,  it  would  be  three 
years  before  he  would  be  the  richer  for  it;  and,  more- 
over, it  involved  what  he  already  described  as  "  banish- 
ment "  to  a  country  which  he  hated. 

His  state  of  mind  when  entering  upon  his  preferment 

was  painfully  depressed.    "  At  my  first  coming,"  he  writes 

to  Miss  Yanhomrigh,  "  I  thought  I  should  have  died  with 

discontent ;  and  was  horribly  melancholy  while  they  were 

'  April  13,  1713. 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  109 

installing  me;  but  it  begins  to  wear  off  and  change  to 
diilness."  This  depression  is  singular,  when  we  remera- 
bor  that  Swift  was  returning  to  the  woman  for  whom  he 
had  the  strongest  affection,  and  from  whom  he  had  been 
separated  for  nearly  three  years ;  and,  moreover,  that  he 
was  returning  as  a  famous  and  a  successful  man.  He 
seems  to  have  been  received  with  some  disfavour  by  a 
society  of  Whig  proclivities.  He  was  suffering  from  a 
fresh  return  of  ill-health ;  and,  besides  the  absence  from 
the  political  struggles  in  which  he  was  so  keenly  interest- 
ed, he  could  not  think  of  them  without  deep  anxiety. 
He  returned  to  London  in  October  at  the  earnest  request 
of  political  friends.  Matters  were  looking  serious;  and 
though  the  journal  to  Stella  was  not  again  taken  up,  we 
can  pretty  well  trace  the  events  of  the  following  period. 

There  can  rarely  have  been  a  less  congenial  pair  of 
colleagues  than  Harley  and  St.  John.  Their  union  was 
that  of  a  still  more  brilliant,  daring,  and  self-confident 
Disraeli  with  a  very  inferior  edition  of  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
with  smaller  intellect  and  exaggerated  infirmities.  The 
timidity,  procrastination,  and  "refinement"  of  the  Treas- 
urer were  calculated  to  exasperate  his  audacious  colleague. 
From  the  earliest  period  Swift  had  declared  that  every- 
thing depended  upon  the  good  mutual  understanding  of 
the  two ;  he  was  frightened  by  every  symptom  of  discord, 
and  declares  (in  August,  1711)  that  he  has  ventured  all  his 
credit  with  the  ministers  to  remove  their  differences.  He 
knew,  as  he  afterwards  said  (October  20,  1711),  that  this 
was  the  way  to  be  sent  back  to  his  willows  at  Laracor, 
but  everything  must  be  risked  in-  such  a  case.  When 
difficulties  revived  next  year  he  hoped  that  he  had  made 
a  reconciliation.  But  the  discord  was  too  vital.  The 
victory  of  the  Tories  brought  on  a  serious  danger.     They 


no  SWIFT.  [chap. 

had  come  into  power  to  make  peace.  They  had  made  it. 
The  next  question  was  that  of  the  succession  of  the  crown. 
Here  they  neither  reflected  the  general  opinion  of  the 
nation  nor  were  agreed  amongst  themselves.  Harley,  as 
we  now  know,  had  flirted  with  the  Jacobites ;  and  Boling- 
broke  was  deep  in  treasonable  plots.  The  existence  of 
such  plots  was  a  secret  to  Swift,  who  indignantly  denied 
their  existence.  When  King  hinted  at  a  possible  danger 
to  Swift  from  the  discovery  of  St.  John's  treason,  he  in- 
dignantly replied  that  he  must  have  been  "  a  most  false 
and  vile  man  "  to  join  in  anything  of  the  kind.*  He  pro- 
fesses elsewhere  his  conviction  that  there  were  not  at  this 
period  fi^ve  hundred  Jacobites  in  England ;  and  "  amongst 
these  not  six  of  any  quality  or  consequence.'"'  Swift's 
sincerity,  here  as  everywhere,  is  beyond  all  suspicion  ;  but 
his  conviction  proves  incidentally  that  he  was  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  "  wheels  within  wheels  " — the  backstairs  plots, 
by  which  the  administration  of  his  friends  was  hampered 
and  distracted.  With  so  many  causes  for  jealousy  and 
discord,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  political  world  became  a 
mass  of  complex  intrigue  and  dispute.  The  Queen,  mean- 
while, might  die  at  any  moment,  and  some  decided  course 
of  action  become  imperatively  necessary.  Whenever  the 
Queen  was  ill,  said  Harley,  people  were  at  their  wits'  end ; 
as  soon  as  she  recovered  they  acted  as  if  she  were  im- 
mortal. Yet,  though  he  complained  of  the  general  inde- 
cision, his  own  conduct  was  most  hopelessly  undecided. 

It  was  in  the  hopes  of  pacifying  these  intrigues  that 
Swift  was  recalled  from  Ireland.  He  plunged  into  the 
fight,  but  not  with  his  old  success.  Two  pamphlets  which 
he  published  at  the  end  of  1713  are  indications  of  his 

1  Letter  to  King,  December  16, 1716. 

'  Inquiry  into  the  Behaviour  of  the  Quccn'^s  last  Ministry. 


t]  the  HARLEY  administration.  Ill 

state  of  mind.  One  was  an  attack  upon  a  wild  no-popery 
shriek  emitted  by  Bishop  Burnet,  whom  he  treats,  says 
Johnson,  "  like  one  whom  he  is  glad  of  an  opportunity  to 
insult."  A  man  who,  like  Burnet,  is  on  friendly  terms 
with  those  who  assail  the  privileges  of  his  order  must  often 
expect  such  treatment  from  its  zealous  adherents.  Yet  the 
scornful  assault,  which  finds  out  weak  places  enough  in 
Burnet's  mental  rhetoric,  is  in  painful  contrast  to  the  dig- 
nified argument  of  earlier  pamphlets.  The  other  pam- 
phlet \Yas  an  incident  in  a  more  painful  contest.  Swift 
had  tried  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  Addison  and  Steele. 
Ue  had  prevented  Steele's  dismissal  from  a  Commissioner- 
ship  of  Stamps.  Steele,  however,  had  lost  his  place  of 
Gazetteer  for  an  attack  upon  Harley.  Swift  persuaded 
Harley  to  be  reconciled  to  Steele,  on  condition  that  Steele 
should  apologize.  Addison  prevented  Steele  from  making 
the  required  submission, "  out  of  mere  spite,"  says  Swift, 
at  the  thought  that  Steele  should  require  other  help — 
rather,  we  guess,  because  Addison  thought  that  the  sub- 
mission would  savour  of  party  infidelity.  A  coldness  fol- 
lowed. "  All  our  friendship  is  over,"  said  Swift  of  Addi- 
son (March  6,  1711);  and  though  good  feeling  revived 
between  the  principals,  their  intimacy  ceased.  Swift, 
swept  into  the  ministerial  vortex,  pretty  well  lost  sight  of 
Addison ;  though  they  now  and  then  met  on  civil  terms. 
Addison  dined  with  Swift  and  St.  John  upon  April  3, 
1713,  and  Swift  attended  a  rehearsal  of  Cato — the  only 
time  when  we  see  him  at  a  theatre.  Meanwhile  the  ill 
feeling  to  Steele  remained,  and  bore  bitter  fruit. 

Steele  and  Addison  had  to  a  great  extent  retired  from 

politics,  and   during   the   eventful    years   I7ll-'12   were 

chiefly   occupied   in   the   politically   harmless   Spectator. 

But  Steele  was  always  ready  to  find  vent  for  his  zeal; 

G 


112  SWIFT.  [chap. 

and  in  1713  he  fell  foul  of  i]iQ  Examiner  in  the  Guardian. 
Swift  had  long  ceased  to  write  Examiners  or  to  be  respon- 
sible for  the  conduct  of  the  paper,  though  he  still  occa- 
sionally inspired  the  writers.  Steele,  naturally  enough, 
supposed  Swift  to  be  still  at  work ;  and  in  defending  a 
daughter  of  Steele's  enemy,  Nottingham,  not  only  sug- 
gested that  Swift  was  her  assailant,  but  added  an  insinua- 
tion that  Swift  was  an  infidel.  The  imputation  stung 
Swift  to  the  quick.  He  had  a  sensibility  to  personal  at- 
tacks, not  rare  with  those  who  most  freely  indulge  in 
them,  which  was  ridiculed  by  the  easy-going  Harley.  An 
attack  from  an  old  friend — from  a  friend  whose  good  opin- 
ion he  still  valued,  though  their  intimacy  had  ceased;  from 
a  friend,  moreover,  whom  in  spite  of  their  separation  he 
had  tried  to  protect ;  and,  finally,  an  attack  upon  the  ten- 
derest  part  of  his  character,  irritated  him  beyond  measure. 
Some  angry  letters  passed,  Steele  evidently  regarding  Swift 
as  a  traitor,  and  disbelieving  his  professions  of  innocence 
and  his  claims  to  active  kindness ;  whilst  Swift  felt  Steele's 
ingratitude  the  more  deeply  from  the  apparent  plausibility 
of  the  accusation.  If  Steele  was  really  unjust  and  ungen- 
erous, we  may  admit  as  a  partial  excuse  that  in  such  cases 
the  less  prosperous  combatant  has  a  kind  of  right  to  bitter- 
ness. The  quarrel  broke  out  at  the  time  of  Swift's  appoint- 
ment to  the  deanery.  Soon  after  the  new  Dean's  return  to 
England,  Steele  was  elected  member  for  Stockbridge,  and 
rushed  into  political  controversy.  His  most  conspicuous 
performance  was  a  frothy  and  pompous  pamphlet  called 
the  Crisis,  intended  to  rouse  alarms  as  to  French  invasion 
and  Jacobite  intrigues.  Swift  took  the  opportunity  to  re- 
venge himself  upon  Steele.  Two  pamphlets — The  impor- 
tance of  the  "  Guardian  "  considered,  and  The  Public  Spirit 
of  the  Whigs  (the  latter  in  answer  to  the  Crisis) — are  fierce 


T.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMINISTRATION.  113 

attacks  upon  Steele  personally  and  politically.  Swift's  feel- 
ing comes  out  sufficiently  in  a  remark  in  the  first.  He  re- 
verses the  saying  about  Cranmer,  and  says  that  he  may 
affirm  of  Steele,  "Do  him  a  good  turn,  and  he  is  your 
enemy  for  ever."  There  is  vigorous  writing  enough,  and 
effective  ridicule  of  Steele's  literary  style  and  political 
alarmism.  But  it  is  painfully  obvious,  as  in  the  attack 
upon  Burnet,  that  personal  animosity  is  now  the  predom- 
inant instead  of  an  auxiliary  feeling.  Swift  is  anxious  be- 
yond all  things  to  mortify  and  humiliate  an  antagonist. 
And  he  is  in  proportion  less  efficient  as  a  partisan,  though 
more  amusing.  He  has,  moreover,  the  disadvantage  of  be- 
ing politically  on  the  defensive.  He  is  no  longer  proclaim- 
ing a  policy,  but  endeavouring  to  disavow  the  policy  at- 
tributed to  his  party.  The  wrath  which  breaks  forth,  and 
the  bitter  personality  with  which  it  is  edged,  were  far  more 
calculated  to  irritate  his  opponents  than  to  disarm  the 
lookers-on  of  their  suspicions. 

Part  of  the  fury  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  growing  un- 
soundness of  his  political  position.  Steele  in  the  beginning 
of  1714  was  expelled  from  the  House  for  the  Crisis  ;  and 
an  attack  made  upon  Swift  in  the  House  of  Lords  for  an 
incidental  outburst  against  the  hated  Scots,  in  his  reply  to 
the  Crisis^  was  only  staved  off  by  a  manoeuvre  of  the  min- 
istry. Meanwhile  Swift  was  urging  the  necessity  of  union 
upon  men  who  hated  each  other  more  than  they  regarded 
any  public  cause  whatever.  Swift  at  last  brought  his  two 
patrons  together  in  Lady  Masham's  lodgings,  and  entreated 
them  to  be  reconciled.  If,  he  said,  they  would  agree,  all 
existing  mischiefs  could  be  remedied  in  two  minutes.  If 
they  would  not,  the  ministry  would  be  ruined  in  two 
months.  Bolingbroke  assented ;  Oxford  characteristically 
shuffled,  said  "  all  would  be  well,"  and  asked  Swift  to  dine 


114  SWIFT.  [chap, 

witli  him  next  day.  Swift,  however,  said  that  he  would 
not  stay  to  see  the  inevitable  catastrophe.  It  was  his 
natural  instinct  to  hide  his  head  in  such  moments;  his 
intensely  proud  and  sensitive  nature  could  not  bear  to 
witness  the  triumph  of  his  enemies,  and  he  accordingly 
retired  at  the  end  of  May,  1714,  to  the  quiet  parsonage 
of  Upper  Letcombe,  in  Berkshire.  The  public  wosdered 
and  speculated ;  friends  wrote  letters  describing  the  scenes 
which  followed,  and  desiring  Swift's  help ;  and  he  read, 
and  walked,  and  chewed  the  cud  of  melancholy  reflection, 
and  thought  of  stealing  away  to  Ireland.  He  wrote,  how- 
ever, a  very  remarkable  pamphlet,  giving  his  view  of  the 
situation,  which  was.  not  published  at  the  time ;  events 
went  too  fast. 

Swift's  conduct  at  this  critical  point  is  most  noteworthy. 
The  pamphlet  {Free  Thoughts  upon  the  Present  State  of 
Affairs)  exactly  coincides  with  all  his  private  and  public 
utterances.  His  theory  was  simple  and  straightforward. 
The  existing  situation  was  the  culminating  result  of 
Harley's  policy  of  refinement  and  procrastination.  Swift 
two  years  before  had  written  a  very  able  remonstrance 
with  the  October  Club,  who  had  sought  to  push  Harley 
into  decisive  measures;  but  though  he  preached  patience 
he  really  sympathized  with  their  motives.  Instead  of 
making  a  clean  sweep  of  his  opponents,  Harley  had  left 
many  of  them  in  office,  either  from  "refinement" — that 
over-subtlety  of  calculation  which  Swift  thought  inferior 
to  plain  common  sense,  and  which,  to  use  his  favourite 
illustration,  is  like  the  sharp  knife  that  mangles  the  paper, 
when  a  plain,  blunt  paper-knife  cuts  it  properly — or  else 
from  inability  to  move  the  Queen,  which  he  had  foolishly 
allowed  to  pass  for  unwillingness,  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
appearance  of  power.     Two  things  were  now  to  be  done : 


v.]  THE  HARLEY  ADMIXISTRATIOX.  115 

first,  a  clean  sweep  should  be  made  of  all  Whigs  and  Dis- 
senters from  office  and  from  the  army ;  secondly,  the 
Court  of  Hanover  should  be  required  to  break  off  all  in- 
tercourse with  the  Opposition,  on  which  condition  the 
heir-presumptive  (the  infant  Prince  Frederick)  might  be 
sent  over  to  reside  in  England.  Briefly,  Swift's  policy 
was  a  policy  of  "thorough."  Oxford's  vacillations  were 
the  great  obstacle,  and  Oxford  was  falling  before  the  alli- 
ance of  Bolingbroke  with  Lady  Masham.  Bolingbroke 
might  have  turned  Swift's  policy  to  the  account  of  the 
Jacobites ;  but  Swift  did  not  take  this  into  account,  and 
in  the  Free  Thoughts  he  declares  his  utter  disbelief  in  any 
danger  to  the  succession.  What  side,  then,  should  he 
take?  He  sympathized  with  Bolingbroke's  avowed  prin- 
ciples. Bolingbroke  was  eager  for  his  help,  and  even 
hoped  to  reconcile  him  to  the  red-haired  duchess.  But 
Swift  was  bound  to  Oxford  by  strong  personal  affection  ; 
by  an  affection  which  was  not  diminished  even  by  the  fact 
that  Oxford  had  procrastinated  in  the  matter  of  Swift's 
own  preferment ;  and  was,  at  this  very  moment,  annoying 
him  by  delaying  to  pay  the  1000/.  incurred  by  his  in- 
stallation in  the  deanery.  To  Oxford  he  had  addressed 
(November  21,  1713)  a  letter  of  consolation  upon  the 
death  of  a  daughter,  possessing  the  charm  which  is  given 
to  such  letters  only  by  the  most  genuine  sympathy  with 
the  feelings  of  the  loser,  and  by  a  spontaneous  selection 
of  the  only  safe  topic — praise  of  the  lost,  equally  tender 
and  sincere.  Every  reference  to  Oxford  is  affectionate. 
When,  at  the  beginning  of  July,  Oxford  was  hastening  to 
his  fall,  Swift  wrote  to  him  another  manly  and  dignified 
letter,  professing  an  attachment  beyond  the  reach  of  ex- 
ternal accidents  of  power  and  rank.  The  end  came  soon. 
Swift  heard  that  Oxford  was  about  to  resign.     He  wrote 


lU  SWIFT.  [cuAP.  V. 

at  once  (July  25,  1714)  to  propose  to  accompany  him  to 
his  country  house.  Oxford  replied  two  days  later  in  a 
letter  oddly  characteristic.  He  begs  Swift  to  come  with 
him :  "  If  I  have  not  tired  you  tete-a-tete,  fling  away  so 
much  of  your  time  upon  one  who  loves  you ;"  and  then 
rather  spoils  the  pathos  by  a  bit  of  hopeless  doggerel. 
Swift  wrote  to  Miss  Vanhomrigh  on  August  1.  "I  have 
been  asked,"  he  says,  "  to  Join  with  those  people  now  in 
power;  but  I  will  not  do  it.  I  told  Lord  Oxford  I  would 
go  with  him,  when  he  was  out;  and  now  he  begs  it  of 
me,  and  I  cannot  refuse  him.  I  meddle  not  with  his 
faults,  as  he  was  a  Minister  of  State ;  but  you  know  his 
personal  kindness  to  me  was  excessive;  he  distinguished 
and  chose  me  above  all  other  men,  while  he  was  great,  and 
his  letter  to  me  the  other  day  was  the  most  moving  im- 
aginable." 

An  intimacy  which  bore  such  fruit  in  time  of  trial  was 
not  one  founded  upon  a  servility  varnished  by  self-asser- 
tion. No  stauncher  friend  than  Swift  ever  lived.  But 
his  fidelity  was  not  to  be  put  to  further  proof.  The  day 
of  the  letter  just  quoted  was  the  day  of  Queen  Anne's 
death.  The  crash  which  followed  ruined  the  "  people 
now  in  power"  as  effectually  as  Oxford.  The  party  with 
which  Swift  had  identified  himself,  in  whose  success  all 
his  hopes  and  ambitions  were  bound  up,  was  not  so  much 
ruined  as  annihilated.  "The  Earl  of  Oxford,"  wrote 
Bolingbroke  to  Swift,  "  was  removed  on  Tuesday.  The 
Queen  died  on  Sunday.  What  a  world  is  this,  and  how 
does  fortune  banter  us !" 


CHAPTER  VL 

STELLA  AND   VANESSA. 

The  final  crash  of  the  Tory  administration  found  Swift 
approaching  the  end  of  his  forty-seventh  year.  It  found 
him,  in  his  own  opinion,  prematurely  aged  both  in  mind 
and  body.  His  personal  prospects  and  political  hopes 
were  crushed.  "  I  have  a  letter  from  Dean  Swift,"  says 
Arbuthnot  in  September ;  "  he  keeps  up  his  noble  spirit, 
and  though  like  a  man  knocked  down,  you  may  behold 
him  still  with  a  stern  countenance  and  aiming  a  blow  at 
his  adversaries."  Yet  his  adversaries  knew,  and  he  knew 
only  too  well,  that  such  blows  as  he  could  now  deliver 
could  at  most  show  his  wrath  without  gratifying  his 
revenge.  He  was  disarmed  as  well  as  "knocked  down." 
He  writes  to  Bolingbroke  from  Dublin  in  despair.  "I 
live  a  country  life  in  town,"  he  says,  "  see  nobody  and  go 
every  day  once  to  prayers,  and  hope  in  a  few  months  to 
grow  as  stupid  as  the  present  situation  of  affairs  will 
require.  Well,  after  all,  parsons  are  not  such  bad  com- 
pany, especially  when  they  are  under  subjection ;  and  I 
let  none  but  such  come  near  me."  Oxford,  Bolingbroke, 
and  Ormond  were  soon  in  exile  or  the  Tower;  and  a  let- 
ter to  Pope  next  year  gives  a  sufficient  picture  of  Swift's 
feelings.  "  You  know,"  he  said,  "  how  well  I  loved  both 
Lord  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke,  and  how  dear  the  Duke  of 


118  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Ormond  is  to  me ;  do  you  imagine  I  can  be  easy  ^vhile 
their  enemies  are  endeavouring  to  take  off  their  heads  ? — 
I  nunc  et  versus  tecum  meditare  canorosT  "You  are  to 
understand,"  he  says  in  conclusion,  "that  I  live  in  the 
corner  of  a  vast  unfurnished  house ;  my  family  consists 
of  a  steward,  a  groom,  a  helper  in  the  stable,  a  footman, 
and  an  old  maid,  who  are  all  at  board  wages,  and  when  I 
do  not  dine  abroad  or  make  an  entertainment  (which  last 
is  very  rare),  I  eat  a  mutton  pie  and  drink  half  a  pint  of 
wine ;  my  amusements  are  defending  my  small  dominions 
against  the  archbishop,  and  endeavouring  to  reduce  my 
rebellious  choir.  Perditur  hcec  inter  misero  lux^  In  an- 
other of  the  dignified  letters  which  show  the  finest  side 
of  his  nature  he  offered  to  join  Oxford,  whose  intrepid 
behaviour,  he  says,  "  has  astonished  every  one  but  me, 
who  know  you  so  well."  But  he  could  do  nothing  be- 
yond showing  sympathy  ;  and  he  remained  alone  asserting 
his  authority  in  his  ecclesiastical  domains,  brooding  over 
the  past,  and  for  the  time  unable  to  divert  his  thoughts 
into  any  less  distressing  channel.  Some  verses  written 
in  October  "in  sickness"  give  a  remarkable  expression 
of  his  melancholy : 

"  'Tis  true — then  why  should  I  repine 
To  see  my  life  so  fast  decline  ? 
But  why  obscurely  here  alone, 
Where  I  am  neither  loved  nor  known  ? 
My  state  of  health  none  care  to  learn, 
My  life  is  here  no  soul's  concern, 
And  those  with  whom  I  now  converse 
Without  a  tear  will  tend  my  hearse." 

Yet  we  might  have  fancied  that  his  lot  would  not  be 
so  unbearable.  After  all,  a  fall  which  ends  in  a  deanery 
should  break  no  bones.     His  friends,  though  hard  pressed, 


TI.J  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  119 

survived ;  and,  lastly,  was  any  one  so  likely  to  shed  tears 
upon  his  hearse  as  the  woman  to  whom  he  was  finally 
returning?  The  answer  to  this  question  brings  us  to  a 
story  imperfectly  known  to  us,  but  of  vital  importance  in 
Swift's  history. 

We  have  seen  in  what  masterful  fashion  Swift  took  pos- 
session of  great  men.  The  same  imperious  temper  shows 
itself  in  his  relations  to  women.  He  required  absolute 
submission.  Entrance  into  the  inner  circle  of  his  affec- 
tions could  only  be  achieved  by  something  like  abase- 
ment ;  but  all  within  it  became  as  a  part  of  himself,  to 
be  both  cherished  and  protected  without  stint.  His 
affectation  of  brutality  was  part  of  a  system.  On  first 
meeting  Lady  Burlington,  at  her  husband's  house,  he 
ordered  her  to  sing.  She  declined.  He  replied,  "  Sing, 
or  I  will  make  you !  Why,  madam,  I  suppose  you  take 
me  for  one  of  your  English  hedge-parsons ;  sing  when  I 
tell  you !"  She  burst  into  tears  and  retired.  The  next 
time  he  met  her  he  began,  "  Pray,  madam,  are  you  as 
proud  and  ill-natured  as  when  I  saw  you  last?"  She 
good  -  humouredly  gave  in,  and  Swift  became  her  warm 
friend.  Another  lady  to  whom  he  was  deeply  attached 
was  a  famous  beauty,  Anne  Long.  A  whimsical  treaty 
was  drawn  up,  setting  forth  that  "the  said  Dr.  Swift, 
upon  the  score  of  his  merit  and  extraordinary  qualities, 
doth  claim  the  sole  and  undoubted  right  that  all  per- 
sons whatever  shall  make  such  advance  to  him  as  he 
pleases  to  demand,  any  law,  claim,  custom,  privilege  of 
sex,  beauty,  fortune  or  quality  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing;" and  providing  that  Miss  Long  shall  cease  the 
contumacy  in  which  she  has  been  abetted  by  the  Van- 
homrighs,  but  be  allowed  in  return,  in  consideration  of  her 
being  "a  Lady  of  the  Toast,"  to  give  herself  the  reputation 
6* 


120  SWIFT.  [chap. 

of  being  one  of  Swift's  acquaintance.  Swift's  affection  for 
Miss  Long  is  touchingly  expressed  in  private  papers,  and 
in  a  letter  written  upon  her  death  in  retirement  and 
poverty.  He  intends  to  put  up  a  monument  to  her  mem- 
ory, and  wrote  a  notice  of  her,  "  to  serve  her  memory," 
and  also,  as  he  characteristically  adds,  to  spite  the  brother 
who  had  neglected  her.  Years  afterwards  he  often  refers 
to  the  "  edict "  which  he  annually  issued  in  England, 
commanding  all  ladies  to  make  him  the  first  advances. 
He  graciously  makes  an  exception  in  favour  of  the  Duch- 
ess of  Queensberry,  though  he  observes  incidentally  that 
he  now  hates  all  people  whom  he  cannot  command.  This 
humorous  assumption,  like  all  Swift's  humour,  has  a 
strong  element  of  downright  earnest.  He  gives  whimsi- 
cal prominence  to  a  genuine  feeling.  He  is  always  acting 
the  part  of  despot,  and  acting  it  very  gravely.  When  he 
stays  at  Sir  Arthur  Acheson's,  Lady  Acheson  becomes 
his  pupil,  and  is  "  severely  chid  "  when  she  reads  wrong. 
Mrs.  Pendarves,  afterwards  Mrs.  Delany,  says  in  the  same 
way  that  Swift  calls  himself  "  her  master,"  and  corrects 
her  when  she  speaks  'bad  English.*  He  behaved  in  the 
same  way  to  his  servants.  Delany  tells  us  that  he  was 
*'  one  of  the  best  masters  in  the  world,"  paid  his  servants 
the  highest  rate  of  wages  known,  and  took  great  pains 
to  encourage  and  help  them  to  save.  But,  on  engaging 
them,  he  always  tested  their  humility.  One  of  their  du- 
ties, he  told  them,  would  be  to  take  turns  in  cleaning  the 
scullion's  shoes,  and  if  they  objected  he  sent  them  about 
their  business.  Ho  is  said  to  have  tested  a  curate's  docil- 
ity in  the  same  way  by  offering  him  sour  wine.  His  do- 
minion was  most  easily  extended  over  women ;  and  a  long 
list  might  be  easily  made  out  of  the  feminine  favourites 
*  Autobiography,  vol.  i.,  p.  407. 


VI. J  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  121 

who  at  all  periods  of  his  life  were  in  more  or  less  intimate 
relations  with  this  self-appointed  sultan.  From  the  wives 
of  peers  and  the  daughters  of  lord  lieutenants  down  to 
Dublin  tradeswomen  with  a  taste  for  rhyming,  and  even 
scullery-maids  with  no  tastes  at  all,  a  whole  hierarchy  of 
female  slaves  bowed  to  his  rule,  and  were  admitted  into 
higher  and  lower  degrees  of  favour. 

Esther  Johnson,  or  Stella — to  give  her  the  name  which 
she  did  not  receive  until  after  the  period  of  the  famous 
journals — was  one  of  the  first  of  these  worshippers.  As 
we  have  seen,  he  taught  her  to  write,  and  when  he  went 
to  Laracor  she  accepted  the  peculiar  position  already 
described.  We  have  no  direct  statement  of  their  mutual 
feelings  before  the  time  of  the  journal ;  but  one  remark- 
able incident  must  be  noticed.  During  his  stay  in  Eng- 
land in  1703-04  Swift  had  some  correspondence  with  a 
Dublin  clergyman  named  Tisdall.  He  afterwards  regarded 
Tisdall  with  a  contempt  which,  for  the  present,  is  only 
half  perceptible  in  some  good-humoured  raillery.  Tis- 
dall's  intimacy  with  "  the  ladies,"  Stella  and  Mrs.  Dingley, 
is  one  topic,  and  in  the  last  of  Swift's  letters  we  find  that 
Tisdall  has  actually  made  an  offer  for  Stella.  Swift  had 
replied  in  a  letter  (now  lost),  which  Tisdall  called  un- 
friendly, unkind,  and  unaccountable.  Swift  meets  these 
reproaches  coolly,  contemptuously,  and  straightforwardly. 
He  will  not  affect  unconsciousness  of  Tisdall's  meaning. 
Tisdall  obviously  takes  him  for  a  rival  in  Stella's  affec- 
tions. Swift  replies  that  he  will  tell  the  naked  truth. 
The  truth  is  that  "if  his  fortune  and  humour  served 
him  to  think  of  that  state''  (marriage)  he  would  prefer 
Stella  to  any  one  on  earth.  So  much,  he  says,  he  has 
declared  to  Tisdall  before.  He  did  not,  however,  think 
of  his  affection  as  an  obstacle  to  Tisdall's  hopes.     Tisdall 


122  SWIFT.  [chap. 

had  been  too  poor  to  marry ;  but  the  offer  of  a  living  has 
removed  that  objection ;  and  Swift  undertakes  to  act  what 
he  has  hitherto  acted,  a  friendly  though  passive  part. 
He  had  thought,  he  declares,  that  the  affair  had  gone  too 
far  to  be  broken  off ;  he  had  always  spoken  of  Tisdall  in 
friendly  terms ;  "  no  consideration  of  my  own  misfortune 
in  losing  so  good  a  friend  and  companion  as  her"  shall 
prevail  upon  him  to  oppose  the  match,  "  since  it  is  held 
so  necessary  and  convenient  a  thing  for  ladies  to  marry, 
and  that  time  takes  off  from  the  lustre  of  virgins  in  all 
other  eyes  but  mine." 

The  letter  must  have  suggested  some  doubts  to  Tisdall. 
Swift  alleges  as  his  only  reasons  for  not  being  a  rival  in 
earnest  his  "  humour  "  and  the  state  of  his  fortune.  The 
last  obstacle  might  be  removed  at  any  moment.  Swift's 
prospects,  though  deferred,  were  certainly  better  than  Tis- 
dall's.  Unless,  therefore,  the  humour  was  more  insur- 
mountable than  is  often  the  case.  Swift's  coolness  was 
remarkable  or  ominous.  It  may  be  that,  as  some  have 
held,  there  was  nothing  behind.  But  another  possibility 
undoubtedly  suggests  itself.  Stella  had  received  Tisdall's 
suit  so  unfavourably  that  it  was  now  suspended,  and  that 
it  finally  failed.  Stella  was  corresponding  with  Swift.  It 
is  easy  to  guess  that,  between  the  "  unaccountable  "  letter 
and  the  contemptuous  letter,  Swift  had  heard  something 
from  Stella  wbich  put  him  thoroughly  at  ease  in  regard  to 
Tisdall's  attentions. 

We  have  no  further  information  until,  seven  years  after- 
wards, we  reacb  the  Journal  to  Stella,  and  find  ourselves 
overhearing  the  *'  little  language."  The  first  editors  scru- 
pled at  a  full  reproduction  of  what  might  strike  an  un- 
friendly reader  as  almost  drivelling ;  and  Mr.  Forster  re- 
printed  for  the  first  time  the  omitted  parts  of  the  still 


Ti.J  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  123 

accessible  letters.  The  little  language  is  a  continuation  of 
Stella's  infantile  prattle.  Certain  letters  are  a  cipher  for 
pet  names  which  may  be  conjectured.  Swift  calls  himself 
Pdfr,  or  Podefar,  meaning,  as  Mr.  Forster  guesses,  "  Poor, 
dear  Foolish  Rogue."  Stella,  or  rather  Esther  Johnson,  is 
Ppt,  say  "  Poppet."  MD,  "  my  dear,"  means  Stella,  and 
sometimes  includes  Mrs.  Dingley.  FW  means  "  farewell," 
or  "foolish  wenches;"  Lele  is  taken  by  Mr.  Forster  to 
mean  "  truly  "  or  "  lazy,"  or  "  there,  there,"  or  to  have 
"  other  meanings  not  wholly  discoverable."  The  phrases 
come  in  generally  by  way  of  leave-taking.  "  So  I  got 
into  bed,"  he  says,  "  to  write  to  MD,  MD,  for  we  must 
always  write  to  MD,  MD,  MD,  awake  or  asleep ;"  and  he 
ends,  "Go  to  bed.  Help  pdfr.  Rove  pdfr,  MD,  MD. 
Nite  darling  rogues."  Here  is  another  scrap :  "  I  assure  oo 
it  im  vely  late  now  ;  but  zis  goes  to-morrow ;  and  I  must 
have  time  to  converse  with  own  deerichar  MD.  Nite  do 
deer  Sollahs."  One  more  leave-taking  may  be  enough: 
"  Farewell,  dearest  hearts  and  souls,  MD.  Farewell,  MD, 
MD,  MD.  FW,  FW,  FW.  ME,  ME.  Lele,  Lele,  Lele, 
Sollahs,  Lele." 

The  reference  to  the  Golden  Farmer  already  noted  is 
in  the  words,  "I  warrant  oo  don't  remember  the  Golden 
Farmer  neither,  Figgarkick  Solly,"  and  I  will  venture  to  a 
guess  at  what  Mr.  Forster  pronounces  to  be  inexplicable.* 
May  not  Solly  be  the  same  as  "  Sollah,"  generally  inter- 
preted by  the  editors  as  "  sirrah ;"  and  "  Figgarkick " 
possibly  be  the  same  as  Pilgarlick,  a  phrase  which  he 
elsewhere  applies  to  Stella,'  and  which  the  dictionaries 
say  means  "  poor,  deserted  creature  ?" 

'  Forster,  p.  108. 

'  October  20,  iVll.  The  last  use  I  have  observed  of  this  word  is 
in  a  letter  of  Carlyle's,  November  Y,  1824 :  "Strange  pilgarlic-looking 
figures." — ^Froude's  lAfe  of  Carlyle^  vol.  i,,  p.  247. 


124  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Swift  says  that  as  he  writes  his  language  he  "makes  up 
his  mouth  just  as  if  he  was  speaking  it."  It  fits  the 
affectionate  caresses  in  which  he  is  always  indulging. 
Nothing,  indeed,  can  be  more  charming  than  the  playful 
little  prattle  which  occasionally  interrupts  the  gossip  and 
the  sharp  utterances  of  hope  or  resentment.  In  the  snatches 
of  leisure,  late  at  night  or  before  he  has  got  up  in  the 
morning,  he  delights  in  an  imaginary  chat ;  for  a  few 
minutes  of  little  fondling  talk  help  hira  to  forget  his 
worries,  and  anticipate  the  happiness  of  reunion.  He 
caresses  her  letters,  as  he  cannot  touch  her  hand.  "And 
now  let  us  come  and  see  what  this  saucy,  dear  letter  of 
MD  says.  Come  out,  letter,  come  out  from  between  the 
sheets ;  here  it  is  underneath,  and  it  will  not  come  out. 
Come  out  again,  I  says ;  so  there.  Here  it  is.  What 
says  Pdf  to  me,  pray  ?  says  it.  Come  and  let  me  answer 
for  you  to  your  ladies.  Hold  up  your  head  then  like  a 
good  letter."  And  so  he  begins  a  little  talk,  and  prays 
that  they  may  be  never  separated  again  for  ten  days 
whilst  he  lives.  Then  he  follows  their  movements  in 
Dublin  in  passages  which  give  some  lively  little  pictures 
of  their  old  habits.  "  And  where  will  you  go  to-day  ?  for 
I  cannot  be  with  you  for  the  ladies."  [He  is  off  sight- 
seeing to  the  Tower  and  Bedlam  with  Lady  Kerry  and  a 
friend.]  "  It  is  a  rainy,  ugly  day ;  I  would  have  you  send 
for  Wales,  and  go  to  the  Dean's ;  but  do  not  play  small 
games  when  you  lose.  You  will  be  ruined  by  Manilio, 
Basto,  the  queen,  and  two  small  trumps  in  red.  I  confess 
it  is  a  good  hand  against  the  player.  But,  then,  there 
are  Spadilio,  Punto,  the  king,  strong  trumps  against  you, 
which  with  one  trump  more  are  three  tricks  ten  ace ;  for 
suppose  you  play  your  Manilio — 0,  silly,  how  I  prate  and 
cannot  get  away  from  MD  in  a  morning.     Go,  get  you 


Ti.J  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  125 

gone,  dear  naughty  girls,  and  let  me  rise."  lie  delights, 
again,  in  turning  to  account  his  queer  talent  for  making 
impromptu  proverbs: 

"  Be  you  lords  or  be  you  earls, 
You  must  write  to  naughty  girls." 

Or  again ; 

"Mr.  White  and  Mr. Red 
Write  to  M.D.  when  a-bed ; 
Mr.  Black  and  Mr.  Brown 
Write  to  M.D.  when  you  are  down ; 
Mr.  Oak  and  Mr.  Willow 
Write  to  M.D.  on  your  pillow." 

And  here  is  one  more  for  the  end  of  the  year : 

"  Would  you  answer  M.D.'s  letter 
On  New  Year's  Day  you  will  do  it  better; 
For  when  the  year  with  M.D.  'gins 
It  without  M.D.  never  'lins." 

"These  proverbs,"  he  explains,  "  have  always  old  words  in 
them  ;  lin  is  leave  off." 

"  But  if  on  New  Year  you  write  nones 
M.D.  then  will  bang  your  bones." 

Reading  these  fond  triflings  we  feel  even  now  as 
though  we  were  unjustifiably  prying  into  the  writer's  con- 
fidence. What  are  we  to  say  to  them?  We  might  sim- 
ply say  that  the  tender  playfulness  is  charming,  and  that 
it  is  delightful  to  find  the  stern  gladiator  turning  from 
party  warfare  to  soothe  his  wearied  soul  with  these  tender 
caresses.  There  is  but  one  drawback.  Macaulay  imitates 
some  of  this  prattle  in  his  charming  letters  to  his  younger 
sister,  and  there  we  can  accept  it  without  diflSculty.  But 
Stella  was  not  Swift's  younger  sister.  She  was  a  beauti- 
ful and  clever  woman  of  thirty,  when  he  was  in  the  prime 


126  SWIFT.  [chap. 

of  his  powers  at  forty-four.  If  Tisdall  could  have  seen 
the  journal  he  would  have  ceased  to  call  Swift  "  unac- 
countable." Did  all  this  caressing  suggest  nothing  to 
Stella?  Swift  does  not  write  as  an  avowed  lover;  Ding- 
ley  serves  as  a  chaperone  even  in  these  intimate  confi- 
dences; and  yet  a  word  or  two  escapes  which  certainly 
reads  like  something  more  than  fraternal  affection.  He 
apologizes  (May  23,  l7ll)  for  not  returning:  "I  will  say 
no  more,  but  beg  you  to  be  easy  till  Fortune  takes  her 
course,  and  to  believe  that  MD's  felicity  is  the  great  goal 
I  aim  at  in  all  my  pursuits."  If  such  words  addressed 
under  such  circumstances  did  not  mean  "  I  hope  to  make 
you  my  wife  as  soon  as  I  get  a  deanery,"  there  must  have 
been  some  distinct  understanding  to  limit  their  force. 

But  another  character  enters  the  drama.  Mrs.  Van- 
homrigh,*  a  widow  rich  enough  to  mix  in  good  society, 
was  living  in  London  with  two  sons  and  two  daughters, 
and  made  Swift's  acquaintance  in  1708.  Her  eldest 
daughter,  Hester,  was  then  seventeen,  or  about  ten  years 
younger  than  Stella.  When  Swift  returned  to  London,  m 
1710,  he  took  lodgings  close  to  the  Vanhomrighs,  and 
became  an  intimate  of  the  family.  In  the  daily  reports 
of  his  dinner  the  name  Van  occurs  more  frequently  than 
any  other.  Dinner,  let  us  observe  in  passing,  had  not 
then  so  much  as  now  the  character  of  a  solemn  religious 
rite,  implying  a  formal  invitation.  The  ordinary  hour 
was  three  (though  Harley  with  his  usual  procrastination 
often  failed  to  sit  down  till  six),  and  Swift,  when  not  pre- 
engaged,  looked  in  at  Court  or  elsewhere  in  search  of  an 
invitation.  He  seldom  failed;  and  when  nobody  else 
offered  Tie  frequently  went  to  the  "  Vans."     The  name  of 

*  Lord  Orrery  instructs  us  to  pronounce  this  name  Vanmmeury. 


Ti.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  127 

the  daughter  is  only  mentioned  two  or  three  times; 
whilst  it  is,  perhaps,  a  suspicious  circumstance  that  he 
very  often  makes  a  quasi-apology  for  his  dining-place.  "I 
was  so  lazy  I  dined  where  my  new  gown  was,  at  Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh's,"  he  says,  in  May,  1*711;  and  a  day  or  two 
later  explains  that  he  keeps  his  "  best  gown  and  periwig  " 
there  whilst  he  is  lodging  at  Chelsea,  and  often  dines 
there  "  out  of  mere  listlessness."  The  phrase  may  not 
have  been  consciously  insincere;  but  Swift  was  dnfting 
into  an  intimacy  which  Stella  could  hardly  approve,  and, 
if  she  desired  Swift's  love,  would  regard  as  ominous. 
When  Swift  took  possession  of  his  deanery  he  revealed 
his  depression  to  Miss  Vanhomrigh,  who  about  this  time 
took  the  title  Vanessa;  and  Vanessa,  again,  received  his 
confidences  from  Letcombe.  A  full  account  of  their  re- 
lations is  given  in  the  remarkable  poem  called  Cadmus 
and  Vanessa,  less  remarkable,  indeed,  as  a  poem  than  as 
an  autobiographical  document.  It  is  singularly  character- 
istic of  Swift  that  we  can  use  what,  for  want  of  a  better 
classification,  must  be  called  a  love  poem,  as  though  it 
were  an  aflSdavit  in  a  law-suit.  Most  men  would  feel 
some  awkwardness  in  hinting  at  sentiments  coiiveyed  by 
Swift  in  the  most  downright  terms;  to  turn  them  into  a 
poem  would  seem  preposterous.  Swift's  poetry,  however, 
is  always  plain  matter  of  fact,  and  we  may  read  Cadenus 
(which  means  of  course  Decanus)  and  Vanessa  as  Swift's 
deliberate  and  palpably  sincere  account  of  his  own  state 
of  mind.  Omitting  a  superfluous  framework  of  mythol- 
ogy in  the  contemporary  taste,  we  have  a  plam  story  of 
the  relations  of  this  new  Heloise  and  Abelard.  Vanessa, 
he  tells  us,  united  masculine  accomplishments  to  feminine 
grace ;  the  fashionable  fops  (I  use  Swift's  own  words  as 
much  as  possible)  who  tried  to  entertain  her  with  the 


128  SWIFT.  [chap. 

tattle  of  the  day,  stared  when  she  replied  by  applications 
of  Plutarch's  morals.  The  ladies  from  the  purlieus  of  St. 
James's  found  her  reading  Montaigne  at  her  toilet,  and 
were  amazed  by  her  ignorance  of  the  fashions.  Both 
were  scandalized  at  the  waste  of  such  charms  and  talents 
due  to  the  want  of  so  called  knowledge  of  the  world. 
Meanwhile,  Vanessa,  not  yet  twenty,  met  and  straightway 
admired  Cadenus,  though  his  eyes  were  dim  with  study 
and  his  health  .decayed.  He  had  grown  old  in  politics 
and  wit;  was  caressed  by  ministers;  dreaded  and  hated 
by  half  mankind,  and  had  forgotten  the  arts  by  which  he 
had  once  charmed  ladies,  though  merely  for  amusement 
and  to  show  his  wit.^  He  did  not  understand  what  was 
love;  he  behaved  to  Vanessa  as  a  father  might  behave  to 
a  daughter : 

"  That  innocent  delight  he  took 
To  see  the  virgin  mind  her  book 
Was  but  the  master's  secret  joy 
In  school  to  hear  the  finest  boy." 

Vanessa,  once  the  quickest  of  learners,  grew  distracted. 
He  apologized  for  having  bored  her  by  his  pedantry,  and 
offered  a  last  adieu.  She  then  startled  him  by  a  confession. 
He  had  taught  her,  she  said,  that  virtue  should  never  be 
afraid  of  disclosures ;  that  noble  minds  were  above  com- 
mon maxims  (just  what  he  had  said  to  Varina),  and  she 
therefore  told  him  frankly  that  his  lessons,  aimed  at  her 
head,  had  reached  her  heart.  Cadenus  was  utterly  taken 
aback.  Her  words  were  too  plain  to  be  in  jest.  He  was 
conscious  of  having  never  for  a  moment  meant  to  be  other 
than  a  teacher.  Yet  every  one  would  suspect  him  of  in- 
tentions to  win  her  heart  and  her  five  thousand  pounds. 

*  This  simply  repeats  what  he  says  in  his  first  published  letters 
about  his  flirtations  at  Leicester. 


VI.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  129 

He  tried  not  to  take  things  seriously.  Vanessa,  however, 
became  eloquent.  She  said  that  he  had  taught  her  to  love 
great  men  through  their  books;  why  should  she  not  love 
the  living  reality?  Cadenus  was  flattered  and  half  con- 
verted. He  had  never  heard  her  talk  so  well,  and  admit- 
ted that  she  had  a  most  unfailing  judgment  and  discerning 
head.  He  still  maintained  that  his  dignity  and  age  put 
love  out  of  the  question,  but  he  offered  in  return  as  much 
friendship  as  she  pleased.  She  replies  that  she  will  now 
become  tutor  and  teach  him  the  lesson  which  he  is  so 
slow  to  learn.     But — and  here  the  revelation  ends — 

"  But  what  success  Vanessa  met 
Is  to  the  Avorld  a  secret  yet."^ 

Vanessa  loved  Swift;  and  Swift,  it  seems,  allowed  him- 
self to  be  loved.  One  phrase  in  a  letter  written  to  him 
during  his  stay  at  Dublin,  in  1713,  suggests  the  only  hint 
of  jealousy.  If  you  are  happy,  she  says,  "  it  is  ill-natured 
of  you  not  to  tell  me  so,  except  'tis  what  is  inconsistent 
•with  mine."  Soon  after  Swift's  final  retirement  to  Ireland, 
Mrs.  Vanhomrigh  died.  Her  husband  had  left  a  small  prop- 
erty at  Celbridge.  One  son  was  dead ;  the  other  behaved 
badly  to  his  sisters ;  the  daughters  were  for  a  time  in  money 
difficulties,  and  it  became  convenient  for  them  to  retire  to 
Ireland,  where  Vanessa  ultimately  settled  at  Celbridge.  The 
two  women  who  worshipped  Swift  were  thus  almost  in  pres- 
ence of  each  other.   The  situation  almost  suggests  comedy; 

*  The  passage  which  contains  this  line  was  said  by  Orrery  to  cast 
an  unmanly  insinuation  against  Vanessa's  virtue.  As  the  accusation 
has  been  repeated,  it  is  perhaps  right  to  say  that  one  fact  sufficiently 
disproves  its  possibility.  The  poem  was  intended  for  Vanessa  alone, 
and  would  never  have  appeared  had  it  not  been  published  after  her 
death  by  her  own  direction. 


130  SWIFT.  [chap. 

but,  unfortunately,  it  was  to  take  a  most  tragical  and  still 
partly  mysterious  development. 

The  fragmentary  correspondence  between  Swift  and 
Vanessa  establishes  certain  facts.  Their  intercourse  was 
subject  to  restraints.  He  begs  her,  when  he  is  starting 
for  Dublin,  to  get  her  letters  directed  by  some  other  hand, 
and  to  write  nothing  that  may  not  be  seen,  for  fear  of 
"  inconveniences."  The  post-office  clerk  surely  would  not 
be  more  attracted  by  Vanessa's  hand  than  by  that  of  such 
a  man  as  Lewis,  a  subordinate  of  Harley's,  who  had  for- 
merly forwarded  her  letters.  He  adds  that  if  she  comes 
to  Ireland  he  will  see  her  very  seldom.  "  It  is  not  a  place 
for  freedom,  but  everything  is  known  in  a  week  and  mag- 
nified a  hundred  times."  Poor  Vanessa  soon  finds  the  truth 
of  this.  She  complains  that  she  is  amongst  "  strange,  pry- 
ing, deceitful  people ;"  that  he  flies  her,  and  will  give  no 
reason  except  that  they  are  amongst  fools  and  must  sub- 
mit. His  reproofs  are  terrible  to  her.  "  If  you  continue 
to  treat  me  as  you  do,"  she  says  soon  after,  "  you  will  not 
be  made  uneasy  by  me  long."  She  would  rather  have 
borne  the  rack  than  those  "killing,  killing  words"  of  his. 
She  writes  instead  of  speaking,  because  when  she  ventures 
to  complain  in  person  "  you  are  angry,  and  there  is  some- 
thing in  your  look  so  awful  that  it  shakes  me  dumb  " — a 
memorable  phrase  in  days  soon  to  come.  She  protests 
that  she  says  as  little  as  she  can.  If  he  knew  what  she 
thought,  he  must  be  moved.  The  letter  containing  these 
phrases  is  dated  1714,  and  there  are  but  a  few  scraps  till 
1720 ;  we  gather  that  Vanessa  submitted  partly  to  the  ne- 
cessities of  the  situation,  and  that  this  extreme  tension  was 
often  relaxed.  Yet  she  plainly  could  not  resign  herself  or 
suppress  her  passion.  Two  letters  in  1720  are  painfully 
vehement.     He  has  not  seen  her  for  ten  long  weeks,  she 


Ti]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  131 

says  in  her  first,  and  she  has  only  had  oTie  letter  and  one 
little  note  with  an  excuse.  She  will  sink  under  his  "  pro- 
digious neglect."  Time  or  accident  cannot  lessen  her  in- 
expressible passion.  "Put  my  passion  under  the  utmost 
restraint;  send  me  as  distant  from  you  as  the  earth  will 
allow,  yet  you  cannot  banish  those  charming  ideas  which 
will  stick  by  me  whilst  I  have  the  use  of  memory.  Nor 
is  the  love  I  bear  you  only  seated  in  my  soul,  for  there  is 
not  a  single  atom  of  my  frame  that  is  not  blended  with  it." 
She  thinks  him  changed,  and  entreats  him  not  to  suffer  her 
to  "live  a  life  like  a  languishing  death,  which  is  the  only 
life  I  can  lead,  if  you  have  lost  any  of  your  tenderness  for 
me."  The  following  letter  is  even  more  passionate.  She 
passes  days  in  sighing  and  nights  in  watching  and  think- 
ing of  one  who  thinks  not  of  her.  She  was  born  with 
"  violent  passions,  which  terminate  all  in  one,  that  inex- 
pressible passion  I  have  for  you."  If  she  could  guess  at 
his  thoughts,  which  is  impossible  ("  for  never  any  one  liv- 
ing thought  like  you  "),  she  would  guess  that  he  wishes  her 
"  religious  " — that  she  might  pay  her  devotions  to  heaven. 
"But  that  should  not  spare  you,  for  was  I  an  enthusiast, 
still  you'd  be  the  deity  I  should  worship."  "  What  marks 
are  there  of  a  deity  but  what  you  are  to  be  known  by 
— you  are  (at?)  present  everywhere;  your  dear  image  is 
always  before  my  eyes.  Sometimes  you  strike  me  with 
that  prodigious  awe,  I  tremble  with  fear;  at  other  times 
a  charming  compassion  shines  through  your  countenance, 
which  moves  my  soul.  Is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  adore 
a  radiant  form  one  has  seen  than  one  only  described  ?"* 
The  man  who  received  such  letters  from  a  woman  whom 

*  Compare  Pope's  Moisa  to  Ahelard^  which  appeared  in  1717.  If 
Vanessa  had  read  it,  she  might  almost  be  suspected  of  borrowing ; 
but  her  phrases  seem  to  be  too  genuine  to  justify  the  hypothesis. 


132  SWIFT.  [chap. 

he  at  least  admired  and  esteemed,  who  felt  that  to  respond 
was  to  administer  poison,  and  to  fail  to  respond  was  to  in- 
flict the  severest  pangs,  must  have  been  in  the  cruellest  of 
dilemmas.  Swift,  we  cannot  doubt,  was  grieved  and  per- 
plexed. His  letters  imply  embarrassment ;  and,  for  the 
most  part,  take  a  lighter  tone ;  he  suggests  his  universal 
panacea  of  exercise;  tells  her  to  fly  from  the  spleen  in- 
stead of  courting  it ;  to  read  diverting  books,  and  so  forth  : 
advice  more  judicious,  probably,  than  comforting.  There 
are,  however,  some  passages  of  a  different  tendency.  There 
is  a  mutual  understanding  to  use  certain  catch-words  which 
recall  the  "  little  language."  He  wishes  that  her  letters  were 
as  hard  to  read  as  his,  in  case  of  accident.  "  A  stroke 
thus  .  .  .  signifies  everything  that  may  be  said  to  Cad^  at 
the  beginning  and  conclusion."  And  she  uses  this  writ- 
ten caress,  and  signs  herself — his  own  "  Skinage."  There 
are  certain  "  questions,"  to  which  reference  i>s  occasionally 
made ;  a  kind  of  catechism,  it  seems,  which  he  was  ex- 
pected to  address  to  himself  at  intervals,  and  the  nature 
of  which  must  be  conjectured.  He  proposes  to  continue 
the  Cadenus  and  Vanessa — a  proposal  which  makes  her 
happy  beyond  "  expression  " — and  delights  her  by  recall- 
ing a  number  of  available  incidents.  He  recurs  to  them 
in  his  last  letter,  and  bids  her  "go  over  the  scenes  of 
Windsor,  Cleveland  Row,  Rider  Street,  St.  James's  Street, 
Kensington,  the  Shrubbery,  the  Colonel  in  France,  &c. 
Cad  thinks  often  of  these,  especially  on  horseback,^  as  I 
am  assured."  This  prosaic  list  of  names  recall,  as  we  find, 
various  old  meetings.  And,  finally,  one  letter  contains 
an  avowal  of  a  singular  kind.  "  Soyez  assuree,"  he  says, 
after  advising  her  "  to  quit  this  scoundrel  island,"  "  que 

*  Scott  appropriately  quotes  Hotspur.     The  phrase  is  apparently 
a  hint  at  Swift's  usual  recipe  of  exercise. 


VI.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  133 

jamais  personne  du  raonde  a  ete  aimee,  honoree,  estimee, 
adoree  par  votre  ami  que  vous."  It  seems  as  though  he 
were  compelled  to  throw  her  just  a  crumb  of  comfort 
here ;  but,  in  the  same  breath,  he  has  begged  her  to  leave 
him  forever. 

If  Vanessa  was  ready  to  accept  a  "  gown  of  forty-four," 
to  overlook  his  infirmities  in  consideration  of  his  fame, 
why  should  Swift  have  refused?  Why  condemn  her  to 
undergo  this  "languishing  death" — a  long  agony  of  unre- 
quited passion  ?  One  answer  is  suggested  by  the  report 
that  Swift  was  secretly  married  to  Stella  in  1716.  The 
fact  is  not  proved  nor  disproved  ;^  nor,  to  my  mind,  is  the 
question  of  its  truth  of  much  importance.  The  ceremony, 
if  performed,  was  nothing  but  a  ceremony.  The  only 
rational  explanation  of  the  fact,  if  it  be  taken  for  a  fact, 

'  I  cannot  here  discuss  the  evidence.  The  original  statements  are 
in  Orrery^  p.  22,  &c. ;  Jbelany,  p.  52  ;  Dean  Swift,  p.  93  ;  Sheridan,  p. 
282 ;  Monck  Berkeley,  p.  xxxvi.  Scott  accepted  the  marriage,  and  the 
evidence  upon  which  he  reUed  was  criticised  by  Monck  Mason,  p.  29V, 
&c.  Monck  Mason  makes  some  good  points,  and  especially  dimin- 
ishes the  value  of  the  testimony  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  showing  by 
dates  that  he  could  not  have  heard  the  story,  as  his  grandson  aflBrms, 
from  Bishop  Ashe,  who  is  said  to  have  performed  the  ceremony.  It 
probably  came,  however,  from  Berkeley,  who,  we  may  add,  was  tutor 
to  Ashe's  son,  and  had  special  reasons  for  interest  in  the  story.  On 
the  whole,  the  argument  for  the  marriage  comes  to  this :  that  it  was 
commonly  reported  by  the  end  of  Swift's  life,  that  it  was  certainly 
believed  by  his  intimate  friend  Delany,  in  all  probability  by  the  elder 
Sheridan  and  by  Mrs.  Whiteway.  Mrs.  Sican,  who  told  the  story  to 
Sheridan,  seems  also  to  be  a  good  witness.  On  the  other  hand.  Dr. 
Lyon,  a  clergyman,  who  was  one  of  Swift's  guardians  in  his  imbecil- 
ity, says  that  it  was  denied  by  Mrs.  Dingley  and  by  Mrs.  Brent,  Swift's 
old  house-keeper,  and  by  Stella's  executors.  The  evidence  seems  ta 
me  very  indecisive.  Much  of  it  may  be  dismissed  as  mere  gossip, 
but  a  certain  probability  remains. 


134  SWIFT.  [chap. 

must  be  that  Swift,  having  resolved  not  to  marry,  gave 
Stella  this  security,  that  he  would,  at  least,  marry  no  one 
else.  Though  his  anxiety  to  hide  the  connexion  with  Va- 
nessa may  only  mean  a  dread  of  idle  tongues,  it  is  at  least 
highly  probable  that  Stella  was  the  person  from  whom  he 
specially  desired  to  keep  it.  Yet  his  poetical  addresses  to 
Stella  upon  her  birthday  (of  which  the  first  is  dated  1719, 
and  the  last  1727)  are  clearly  not  the  addresses  of  a  lover. 
Both  in  form  and  substance  they  are  even  pointedly  in- 
tended to  express  friendship  instead  of  love.  They  read 
like  an  expansion  of  his  avowal  to  Tisdall,  that  her  charms 
for  him,  though  for  no  one  else,  could  not  be  diminished 
by  her  growing  old  without  marriage.  He  addresses  her 
with  blunt  affection,  and  tells  her  plainly  of  her  growing 
size  and  waning  beauty ;  comments  even  upon  her  defects 
of  temper,  and  seems  expressly  to  deny  that  he  loved  her 
in  the  usual  way : 

"  Thou,  Stella,  wert  no  longer  young 
When  first  for  thee  my  harp  I  strung, 
Without  one  word  of  Cupid's  darts, 
Of  killing  eyes  and  bleeding  hearts ; 
With  friendship  and  esteem  possess'd, 
I  ne'er  admitted  love  a  guest." 

We  may  almost  say  that  he  harps  upon  the  theme  of 
"friendship  and  esteem."  His  gratitude  for  her  care  of 
him  is  pathetically  expressed;  he  admires  her  with  the 
devotion  of  a  brother  for  the  kindest  of  sisters ;  his  plain, 
prosaic  lines  become  poetical,  or  perhaps  something  better ; 
but.  there  is  an  absence  of  the  lover^s  strain  which  is  only 
not,  if  not,  ostentatious. 

The  connexion  with  Stella,  whatever  its  nature,  gives 
the  most  intelligible  explanation  of  his  keeping  Vanessa 


1 


Vl]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  135 

at  a  distance.  A  collision  between  his  two  slaves  might 
be  disastrous.  And,  as  the  story  goes  (for  we  are  every- 
where upon  uncertain  ground),  it  came.  In  1721  poor 
Vanessa  had  lost  her  only  sister*  and  companion :  her 
brothers  were  already  dead,  and,  in  her  solitude,  she  would 
naturally  be  more  than  ever  eager  for  Swift's  kindness. 
At  last,  in  1723,  she  wrote  (it  is  said)  a  letter  to  Stella, 
and  asked  whether  she  was  Swift's  wife."  Stella  replied  that 
she  was,  and  forwarded  Vanessa's  letter  to  Swift.  How 
Swift  could  resent  an  attempt  to  force  his  wishes  has 
been  seen  in  the  letter  to  Varina.  He  rode  in  a  fury  to 
Celbridge.  His  countenance,  says  Orrery,  could  be  terri- 
bly expressive  of  the  sterner  passions.  Prominent  eyes— 
"azure  as  the  heavens"  (says  Pope) — arched  by  bushy 
black  eyebrows,  could  glare,  we  can  believe  from  his  por- 
traits, with  the  green  fury  of  a  cat's.  Vanessa  had  spoken 
of  the  "  something  awful  in  hfs  looks,"  and  of  his  killing 
words.  He  now  entered  her  room,  silent  with  rage,  threw 
down  her  letter  on  the  table,  and  rode  off.  He  had  struck 
Vanessa's  death-blow.  She  died  soon  afterwards,  but  lived 
long  enough  to  revoke  a  will  made  in  favour  of  Swift  and 
leave  her  money  between  Judge  Marshal  and  the  famous 
Bishop  Berkeley.  Berkeley,  it  seems,  had  only  seen  her 
once  in  his  life. 

The  story  of  the  last  fatal  interview  has  been  denied. 
Vanessa's  death,  though  she  was  under  thirty-five,  is  less 
surprising  when  we  remember  that  her  younger  sister 
and  both  her  brothers  had  died  before  her;  and  that  her 
health  had  always  been  weak,  and  her  life  for  some  time 
a  languishing  death.   That  there  was  in  any  case  a  terribly 

*  Monch  Mason.,  p.  310,  note. 

2  This  is  Sheridan's  story.  Orrery  speaks  of  the  letter  as  written 
to  Swift  himself. 

"7 


186  SWIFT.  [ciiAP. 

tragic  climax  to  the  half-written  romance  of  Cadenus  and 
Vanessa  is  certain.  Vanessa  requested  that  the  poem  and 
the  letters  might  be  published  by  her  executors.  Berkeley- 
suppressed  the  letters  for  the  time,  and  they  were  not  pub- 
lished in  full  until  Scott's  edition  of  Swift's  works. 

Whatever  the  facts,  Swift  had  reasons  enough  for  bit- 
ter regret,  if  not  for  deep  remorse.  He  retired  to  hide 
his  head  in  some  unknown  retreat;  absolute  seclusion  was 
the  only  solace  to  his  gloomy,  wounded  spirit.  After  two 
months  he  returned,  to  resume  his  retired  habits.  A  pe- 
riod followed,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  of  fierce 
political  excitement.  For  a  time,  too,  he  had  a  vague  hope 
of  escaping  from  his  exile.  An  astonishing  literary  suc- 
cess increased  his  reputation.  But  another  misfortune  ap- 
proached, which  crushed  all  hope  of  happiness  in  life. 

In  1726  Swift  at  last  revisited  England.  He  writes 
in  July  that  he  has  for  two  months  been  anxious  about 
Stella's  health,  and  as  usual  feared  the  worst.  He  has  seen 
through  the  disguises  of  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Dingley.  His 
heart  is  so  sunk  that  he  will  never  be  the  same  man  again, 
but  drag  on  a  wretched  life  till  it  pleases  God  to  call  him 
away.  Then  in  an  agony  of  distress  he  contemplates  her 
death ;  he  says  that  he  could  not  bear  to  be  present ;  he 
should  be  a  trouble  to  her,  and  the  greatest  torment  to 
himself.  He  forces  himself  to  add  that  her  death  must 
not  take  place  at  the  deanery.  He  will  not  return  to  find 
her  just  dead  or  dying.  "  Nothing  but  extremity  could 
make  me  so  familiar  with  those  terrible  words  applied  to 
so  dear  a  friend."  "I  think,"  he  says  in  another  letter, 
''  that  there  is  not  a  greater  folly  than  that  of  entering 
into  too  strict  a  partnership  or  friendship  with  the  loss 
of  which  a  man  must  be  absolutely  miserable;  but  es- 
pecially [when  the  loss  occnr>^]  at  an  age  when  it  is  too 


Ti.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  137 

late  to  engage  in  a  new  friendship."  The  morbid  feeling 
which  could  withhold  a  man  from  attending  a  friend's 
deathbed,  or  allow  him  to  regret  the  affection  to  which  his 
pain  was  due,  is  but  too  characteristic  of  Swift's  egoistic 
attachments.  Yet  we  forgive  the  rash  phrase,  when  we 
read  his  passionate  expressions  of  agony.  Swift  returned 
to  Ireland  in  the  autumn,  and  Stella  struggled  through  the 
winter.  He  was  again  in  England  in  the  following  sum- 
mer, and  for  a  time  in  better  spirits.  But  once  more  the 
news  comes  that  Stella  is  probably  on  her  deathbed ;  and 
he  replies  in  letters  which  we  read  as  we  listen  to  groans 
of  a  man  in  sorest  agony.  He  keeps  one  letter  for  an 
hour  before  daring  to  open  it.  He  does  not  wish  to  live 
to  see  the  loss  of  the  person  for  whose  sake  alone  life  was 
worth  preserving.  *'  What  have  I  to  do  in  the  world  ?  I 
never  was  in  such  agonies  as  when  I  received  your  letter 
and  had  it  in  my  pocket.  I  am  able  to  hold  up  my  sorry 
head  no  longer."  In  another  distracted  letter  he  repeats, 
in  Latin,  the  desire  that  Stella  shall  not  die  in  the  deanery, 
for  fear  of  malignant  misinterpretations.  If  any  marriage 
had  taken  place,  the  desire  to  conceal  it  had  become  a 
rooted  passion. 

Swift  returned  to  Ireland,  to  find  Stella  still  living.  It 
is  said  that  in  the  last  period  of  her  life  Swift  offered  to 
make  the  marriage  public,  and  that  she  declined,  saying 
that  it  was  now  too  late.*  She  lingered  till  January  28, 
1728.  He  sat  down  the  same  night  to  write  a  few  scat- 
tered reminiscences.     He  breaks  down ;  and  writes  again 

*  Scott  heard  this  from  Mrs.  Whiteway's  grandson.  Sheridan 
tells  the  story  as  though  Stella  had  begged  for  publicity,  and  Swift 
cruelly  refused.  Delany's  statement  (p.  56),  which  agrees  with  Mrs. 
Whiteway's,  appears  to  be  on  good  authority,  and,  if  true,  proves  the 
reality  of  the  marriage. 


138  SWIFT.  [chap. 

during  the  funeral,  which  he  is  too  ill  to  attend.  The 
fragmentary  notes  give  us  the  most  authentic  account  of 
Stella,  and  show,  at  least,  what  she  appeared  in  the  eyes 
of  her  lifelong  friend  and  protector.  We  may  believe 
that  she  was  intelligent  and  charming,  as  we  can  be  cer- 
tain that  Swift  loved  her  in  every  sense  but  one.  A  lock 
of  her  hair  was  preserved  in  an  envelope  in  which  he  had 
written  one  of  those  vivid  phrases  by  which  he  still  lives 
in  our  memory :  "  Only  a  woman^s  hairy  What  does  it 
mean?  Our  interpretation  will  depend  partly  upon  what 
we  can  see  ourselves  in  a  lock  of  hair.  But  I  think  that 
any  one  who  judges  Swift  fairly  will  read  in  those  four 
words  the  most  intense  utterance  of  tender  affection,  and 
of  pathetic  yearning  for  the  irrevocable  past,  strangely 
blended  with  a  bitterness  springing,  not  from  remorse,  but 
indignation  at  the  cruel  tragi-comedy  of  life.  The  Des- 
tinies laugh  at  us  whilst  they  torture  us ;  they  make  cruel 
scourges  of  trifles,  and  extract  the  bitterest  passion  from 
our  best  affections. 

Swift  was  left  alone.  Before  we  pass  on  we  must 
briefly  touch  the  problems  of  this  strange  history.  It  was 
a  natural  guess  that  some  mysterious  cause  condemned 
Swift  to  his  loneliness.  A  story  is  told  by  Scott  (on  poor 
evidence)  that  Delany  went  to  Archbishop  King's  library 
about  the  time  of  the  supposed  marriage.  As  he  entered 
Swift  rushed  out  with  a  distracted  countenance.  King 
was  in  tears,  and  said  to  Delany,  "  You  have  just  met  the 
most  unhappy  man  on  earth ;  but  on  the  subject  of  his 
wretchedness  you  must  never  ask  a  question."  This  has 
been  connected  with  a  guess  made  by  somebody  that 
Swift  had  discovered  Stella  to  be  his  natural  sister.  It 
can  be  shown  conclusively  that  this  is  impossible;  and 
the  story  must  be  left  as  picturesque  but  too  hopelessly 


VI.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  139 

vngno  to  gratify  any  inference  '.vhatcvcr.  We  know  with- 
out it  that  Swift  wa*  unhappy,  but  we  know  nothing  of 
any  definite  cause. 

Another  view  is  that  there  is  no  mystery.  Swift,  it  is 
said,  retained  through  life  the  position  of  Stella's  "  guide, 
philosopher,  and  friend,"  and  was  never  anything  more. 
Stella's  address  to  Swift  (on  his  birthday,  1721)  may  be 
taken  to  confirm  this  theory.  It  says  with  a  plainness 
like  his  own  that  he  had  taught  her  to  despise  beauty 
and  hold  her  empire  by  virtue  and  sense.  Yet  the  theory 
is  in  itself  strange.  The  less  love  entered  into  Swift's 
relations  to  Stella,  the  more  difficult  to  explain  his  behav- 
iour to  Vanessa.  If  he  regarded  Stella  only  as  a  daughter 
or  a  younger  sister,  and  she  returned  the  same  feeling,  he 
had  no  reason  for  making  any  mystery  about  the  woman 
who  would  not  in  that  case  be  a  rival.  If,  again,  we  ac- 
cept this  view,  we  naturally  ask  why  Swift  "  never  admitted 
love  a  guest."  He  simply  continued,  it  is  suggested,  to 
behave  as  teacher  to  pupil.  lie  thought  of  her  when  she 
was  a  woman  as  he  had  thought  of  her  when  she  was  a 
child  of  eight  years  old.  But  it  is  singular  that  a  man 
should  be  able  to  preserve  such  a  relation.  It  is  quite 
true  that  a  connexion  of  this  kind  may  blind  a  man  to 
its  probable  consequences ;  but  it  is  contrary  to  ordinary 
experience  that  it  should  render  the  consequences  less 
probable.  The  relation  might  explain  why  Swift  should 
be  off  his  guard ;  but  could  hardly  act  as  a  safeguard. 
An  ordinary  man  who  was  on  such  terms  with  a  beautiful 
girl  as  are  revealed  in  the  Journal  to  Stella  would  have 
ended  by  falling  in  love  with  her.  Why  did  not  Swift? 
We  can  only  reply  by  remembering  the  "coldness"  of 
temper  to  which  he  refers  in  his  first  letter,  and  his  asser- 
tion that  he  did  not  understand  love,  and  that  his  frequent 


140  SWIFT.  [chap. 

flirtations  never  meant  more  than  a  desire  for  distraction. 
The  affair  with  Varina  is  an  exception ;  but  there  are 
grounds  for  holding  that  Swift  was  constitutionally  indis- 
posed to  the  passion  of  love.  The  absence  of  any  traces 
of  such  a  passion  from  writings  conspicuous  for  their 
amazing  sincerity,  and  (it  is  added)  for  their  freedoms 
of  another  kind,  has  been  often  noticed  as  a  confirmation 
of  tliis  hypothesis.  Yet  it  must  be  said  that  Swift  could 
be  strictly  reticent  about  his  strongest  feelings — and  was 
specially  cautious,  for  whatever  reason,  in  regard  to  his 
relation  with  Stella.^ 

If  Swift  constitutionally  differed  from  other  men,  we 
have  some  explanation  of  his  strange  conduct.  But  we 
must  take  into  account  other  circumstances.  Swift  had 
very  obvious  motives  for  not  marrying.  In  the  first  place, 
he  gradually  became  almost  a  monomaniac  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  money.  His  hatred  of  wasting  a  penny  unneces- 
sarily began  at  Trinity  College,  and  is  prominent  in  all  his 
letters  and  journals.  It  coloured  even  his  politics,  for  a 
conviction  that  the  nation  was  hopelessly  ruined  is  one  of 
his  strongest  prejudices.  He  kept  accounts  down  to  half- 
pence, and  rejoices  at  every  saving  of  a  shilling.  The 
passion  was  not  the  vulgar  desire  for  wealth  of  the  ordi- 
nary miser.  It  sprang  from  the  conviction  stored  up 
in  all  his  aspirations  that  money  meant  independence. 
"  Wealth,"  he  says,  "  is  liberty ;  and  liberty  is  a  blessing- 
fittest  for  a  philosopher — and  Gay  is  a  slave  just  by  two 
thousand  pounds  too  little.""  Gay  was  a  duchess's  lap- 
dog  ;  Swift,  with  all  his  troubles,  at  least  a  free  man. 
Like  all  Swift's  prejudices,  this  became  a  fixed  idea  which 

^  Besides  Scott's  remarks  (see  vol.  v.  of  his  life)  see  Orrery,  Let- 
ter 10 ;  Deane  Swift,  p.  93  ;  Sheridan,  p.  297. 
»  Letter  to  Pope,  July  16, 1728. 


VI.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  141 

was  always  gathering  strength.  He  did  not  love  money 
for  its  own  sake.  He  was  even  magnificent  in  his  gener- 
osity. He  scorned  to  receive  money  for  his  writings ;  he 
abandoned  the  profit  to  his  printers  in  compensation  for 
the  risks  they  ran,  or  gave  it  to  his  friends.  His  charity 
was  splendid  relatively  to  his  means.  In  later  years  he 
lived  on  a  third  of  his  income,  gave  away  a  third,  and 
saved  the  remaining  third  for  his  posthumous  charity^ — 
and  posthumous  charity  which  involves  present  saving  is 
charity  of  the  most  unquestionable  kind.  His  principle 
was,  that  by  reducing  his  expenditure  to  the  lowest  possi- 
ble point,  he  secured  his  independence,  and  could  then 
make  a  generous  use  of  the  remainder.  Until  he  had  re- 
ceived his  deanery,  however,  he  could  only  make  both  ends 
meet.  Marriage  would,  therefore,  have  meant  poverty, 
probably  dependence,  and  the  complete  sacrifice  of  his 
ambition. 

If  under  these  circumstances  Swift  had  become  engaged 
to  Stella  upon  Temple's  death,  he  would  have  been  doing 
what  was  regularly  done  by  fellows  of  colleges  under  the 
old  system.  There  is,  however,  no  trace  of  such  an  en- 
gagement. It  would  be  in  keeping  with  Swift's  character, 
if  we  should  suppose  that  he  shrank  from  the  bondage  of 
an  engagement ;  that  he  designed  to  marry  Stella  as  soon 
as  he  should  achieve  a  satisfactory  position,  and  meanwhile 
trusted  to  his  influence  over  her,  and  thought  that  he  was 
doing  her  justice  by  leaving  her  at  liberty  to  marry  if  she 
chose.  The  close  connexion  must  have  been  injurious  to 
Stella's  prospects  of  a  match ;  but  it  continued  only  by 
her  choice.  If  this  were,  in  fact,  the  case,  it  is  still  easy 
to  understand  why  Swift  did  not  marry  upon  becoming 
Dean.  He  felt  himself,  I  have  said,  to  be  a  broken  man. 
^  Sheridan,  p.  23. 


142  SWIFT.  [chap. 

His  prospects  were  riilned,  and  bis  health  precarious. 
This  last  fact  requires  to  be  reEuembcrcd  in  every  estimate 
of  Swift's  character.  Ilis  life  was  passed  under  a  Damo- 
cles' Bword.  lie  suffered  from  a  distressin<T  illness  which 
he  attributed  to  fin  indigestion  produced  by  an  over-con- 
sumption of  fruit  at  Temple's  when  he  was  a  little  over 
twenty-one.  The  main  symptoms  were  a  giddiness,  which 
frequently  attacked  him,  and  \vas  accompanied  by  deaf- 
ness. It  is  quite  recently  that  the  true  nature  of  the  com- 
plaint has  been  identified.  Dr.  BncknilP  seems  to  prove 
that  the  symptoms  are  those  of  "  Labyrinthine  vertigo," 
or  Meniere's  disease,  so  called  because  discovered  by  Me- 
niere in  1861.  The  references  to  his  sufferings,  brought 
together  by  Sir  William  Wiido  in  1849,'  are  frequent  in 
all  his  writings.  It  tormented  him  for  days,  weeks,  and 
months,  gradually  becoming  more  permanent  in  later  years. 
In  1731  he  tells  Gay  that  his  giddiness  attacks  him  con- 
stantly, though  it  is  less  violent  than  of  old ;  and  in  1736 
he  says  that  it  is  continual.  From  a  much  earlier  period 
it  had  alarmed  and  distressed  him.  Some  pathetic  entries 
are  given  by  Mr.  Forster  from  one  of  his  note-books: 
"December  5  (1 708).— Horribly  sick.  12th.— Much  bet- 
ter, thank  God  and  M.D.'s  prayers.  .  .  .  April  2d  (1709). 
Small  giddy  fit  and  swimming  in  the  head.  M.D.  and 
God  help  me.  .  .  .  July,  1710. — Terrible  fit.  God  knows 
what  may  be  the  event.  Better  towards  the  end."  The 
terrible  anxiety,  always  in  the  background,  must  count  for 
much  in  Swift's  gloomy  despondency.  Though  he  seems 
always  to  have  spoken  of  the  fruit  as  the  cause,  ho  must 
have  had  misgivings  as  to  the  nature  and  result.  Dr. 
Bucknill  tells  us  that  it  was  not  necessarily  connected 

^  Brain  for  January,  1882, 

*  Closing  Years  of  Dean.  Swiff  s  Life. 


VI.]  STELLA  AND  VANESSA.  143 

with  the  disease  of  the  brain  which  ultimately  came  upon 
him ;  but  he  may  well  have  thought  that  this  disorder  of 
the  head  was  prophetic  of  such  an  end.  It  was,  probably, 
in  171 V  that  he  said  to  Young,  of  the  Night  Thoughts,  "I 
shall  be  like  that  tree :  I  shall  die  at  the  top."  A  man 
haunted  perpetually  by  such  forebodings  might  well  think 
that  marriage  was  not  for  him.  In  Cadenus  and  Vanessa 
he  insists  upon  his  declining  years  with  an  emphasis  which 
seems  excessive  even  from  a  man  of  forty-four  (in  1713 
he  was  really  forty-five)  to  a  girl  of  twenty.  In  a  singu- 
lar poem  called  the  Progress  of  Marriage  he  treats  the 
supposed  case  of  a  divine  of  fifty -two  marrying  a  lively 
girl  of  fashion,  and  speaks  with  his  usual  plainness  of  the 
probable  consequences  of  such  folly.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  here  as  elsewhere  he  is  thinking  of  himself.  He  was 
fifty-two  when  receiving  the  passionate  love-letters  of  Va- 
nessa ;  and  the  poem  seems  to  be  specially  significant. 

This  is  one  of  those  cases  in  which  we  feel  that  even 
biographers  are  not  omniscient ;  and  I  must  leave  it  to  my 
readers  to  choose  their  own  theory,  only  suggesting  that 
readers  too  are  fallible.  But  we  may  still  ask  what  judg- 
ment is  to  be  passed  upon  Swift's  conduct.  Both  Stella 
and  Vanessa  suffered  from  coming  within  the  sphere  of 
Swift's  imperious  attraction.  Stella  enjoyed  his  friendship 
through  her  life  at  the  cost  of  a  partial  isolation  from 
ordinary  domestic  happiness.  She  might  and  probably 
did  regard  his  friendship  as  a  full  equivalent  for  the  sacri- 
fice. It  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which,  if  the  actors  be  our 
contemporaries,  we  hold  that  outsiders  are  incompetent  to 
form  a  judgment,  as  none  but  the  principals  can  really 
know  the  facts.  Is  it  better  to  be  the  most  intimate 
friend  of  a  man  of  genius  or  the  wife  of  a  commonplace 
Tisdall  ?  If  Stella  chose,  and  chose  freely,  it  is  hard  to  say 
7* 


144  SWIFT.  [chap.  VI. 

that  she  was  mistaken,  or  to  blame  Swift  for  a  fascination 
which  he  could  not  but  exercise.  The  tragedy  of  Vanessa 
suggests  rather  different  reflectionc.  Svrift's  duty  was 
plain.  Granting  what  seems  to  be  probable,  that  Vanessa's 
passion  took  him  by  surprise,  and  that  he  thought  himself 
disqualified  for  marriage  by  infirmity  and  weariness  of  life, 
he  should  have  made  his  decision  perfectly  plain.  lie 
should  have  forbidden  any  clandestine  relations.  Furtive 
caresses — even  on  paper — understandings  to  carry  on  a 
private  correspondence,  fond  references  to  old  meetings, 
were  obviously  calculated  to  encourage  her  passion.  He 
should  not  only  have  pronounced  it  to  be  hopeless,  but 
made  her,  at  whatever  cost,  recognize  the  hopelessness. 
This  is  where  Swift's  strength  seems  to  have  failed  him. 
lie  was  not  intentionally  cruel ;  he  could  not  foresee  the 
fatal  event;  he  tried  to  put  her  aside,  and  he  felt  the 
"  shame,  disappointment,  grief,  surprise,"  of  which  he 
speaks  on  the  avowal  of  her  love.  He  gave  her  the  most 
judicious  advice,  and  tried  to  persuade  her  to  accept  it. 
But  he  did  not  make  it  effectual.  He  shrank  from  inflict- 
ing pain  upon  her  and  upon  himself.  He  could  not  de- 
prive himself  of  the  sympathy  which  soothed  his  gloomy 
melancholy.  His  affection  was  never  free  from  the  egoistic 
element  which  prevented  him  from  acting  unequivocally, 
as  an  impartial  spectator  would  have  advised  him  to  act,  or 
as  he  would  have  advised  another  to  act  in  a  similar  case. 
And  therefore,  when  the  crisis  came,  the  very  strength  of 
his  affection  produced  an  explosion  of  selfish  wrath,  and 
he  escaped  from  the  intolerable  position  by  striking  down 
the  woman  whom  he  loved,  and  whose  love  for  him  had 
become  a  burden.  The  wrath  was  not  the  less  fatal  be- 
cause it  was  half  composed  of  remorse,  and  the  energy  of 
the  explosion  proportioned  to  the  strength  of  the  feeling 
which  had  held  it  in  check. 


CHAPTER  yil. 


In  one  of  Scott's  finest  novels  the  old  Cameronian  preacher, 
who  had  been  left  for  dead  by  Claverhouse's  troopers, 
suddenly  rises  to  confront  his  conquerors,  and  spends  his 
last  breath  in  denouncing  the  oppressors  of  the  saints. 
Even  such  an  apparition  was  Jonathan  Swift  to  comfort- 
able Whigs  who  were  flourishing  in  the  place  of  Harley 
and  St.  John,  when,  after  ten  years'  quiescence,  he  sud- 
denly stepped  into  the  political  arena.  After  the  first 
crushing  fall  he  had  abandoned  partial  hope,  and  con- 
tented himself  with  establishing  supremacy  in  his  chap- 
ter. But  undying  wrath  smouldered  in  his  breast  till  time 
came  for  an  outburst. 

No  man  had  ever  learnt  more  thoroughly  the  lesson, 
"  Put  not  your  faith  in  princes ;"  or  had  been  impressed 
with  a  lower  estimate  of  the  wisdom  displayed  by  the 
rulers  of  the  world.  He  had  been  behind  the  scenes,  and 
knew  that  the  wisdom  of  great  ministers  meant  just  enough 
cunning  to  court  the  ruin  which  a  little  common  sense 
would  have  avoided.  Corruption  was  at  the  prow  and 
folly  at  the  helm.  The  selfish  ring  which  he  had  de- 
nounced so  fiercely  had  triumphed.  It  had  triumphed,  as 
l>e  held,  by  flattering  the  new  dynasty,  hoodwinking  the 
nation,  and  maligning  its  antagonists.    The  cynical  theory 


146  SWIFT.  [chap. 

of  politics  was  not  for  liim,  as  for  some  comfortable 
cynics,  an  abstract  })roposition,  wliich  mattered  very  little 
to  a  sensible  man,  but  was  embodied  in  the  bitter  wrath 
with  which  he  regarded  his  triumphant  adversaries.  Pes- 
simism is  perfectly  compatible  with  Mand  enjoyment  of 
the  good  things  in  a  bad  world ;  but  Swift's  pessimism 
was  not  of  this  type.  It  meant  energetic  hatred  of 
definite  things  and  people  who  were  always  before  him. 

"With  this  feeling  he  had  come  to  Irohuid ;  and  Ireland 
— I  am  speaking  of  a  century  and  a  half  ago — was  the 
opprobrium  of  English  statesmanship.  There  Swift  had 
(or  thought  he  had)  always  before  him  a  concrete  example 
of  the  basest  form  of  tyranny.  By  Ireland,  I  have  said, 
Swift  meant,  in  the  first  place,  the  English  in  Ireland. 
In  the  last  years  of  his  sanity  he  protested  indignantly 
ngainst  the  confusion  between  the  "savage  old  Irish" 
:i.nd  the  English  gentry,  who,  he  said,  were  much  better 
bred,  spoke  better  English,  and  were  more  civilized  than 
the  inhabitants  of  ma:iy  English  counties.^  He  retained 
to  the  end  of  his  lif.:  his  antipathy  to  the  Scotch  colonists. 
lie  opposed  their  demand  for  political  equality  as  fiercely 
in  the  last  as  in  his  first  political  utterances.  He  con- 
trasted them  unfavourably"  with  the  Catholics,  who  had, 
indeed,  been  driven  to  revolt  by  massacre  and  confiscation 
under  Puritan  rule,  but  who  were  now,  he  declared,  "  true 
Wliigs,  in  the  best  and  most  proper  sense  of  the  word," 
and  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  house  of  Hanover.  Had 
there  been  a  danger  of  a  Catholic  revolt,  Swift's  feelings 
might  have  been  different;  but  he  always  held  that  they 
were  "as  inconsiderable  as  the  women  and  children," 
mere  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,"  "out  of  all 

'  Letter  to  Pope,  July  13,  1737. 

*  Catholic  Reasons  for  Repealing  the  Test. 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  147 

capacity  of  doing  any  mischief,  if  they  were  ever  so  well 
inclined."*  Looking  at  them  in  this  way,  he  felt  a  sin- 
cere compassion  for  their  misery  and  a  bitter  resentment 
against  their  oppressors.  The  English,  he  said,  in  a 
remarkable  letter,'  should  be  ashamed  of  their  reproaches 
of  Irish  dulness,  ignorance,  and  cowardice.  Those  defects 
were  the  products  of  slavery.  He  declared  that  the  poor 
cottagers  had  "  a  much  better  natural  taste  for  good  sense, 
humour,  and  raillery  than  ever  I  observed  among  people 
of  the  like  sort  in  England.  But  the  millions  of  oppres- 
sions they  lie  under,  the  tyranny  of  their  landlords,  the 
ridiculous  zeal  of  their  priests,  and  the  misery  of  the 
whole  nation,  have  been  enough  to  damp  the  best  spirits 
under  the  sun."  Such  a  view  is  now  commonplace 
enough.  It  was  then  a  heresy  to  English  statesmen,  who 
thought  that  nobody  but  a  Papist  or  a  Jacobite  could  ob- 
ject to  the  tyranny  of  Whigs. 

Swift's  diagnosis  of  the  chronic  Irish  disease  was  thor- 
oughly political.  He  considered  that  Irish  misery  sprang 
from  the  subjection  to  a  government  not  intentionally 
cruel,  but  absolutely  selfish ;  to  which  the  Irish  revenue 
meant  so  much  convenient  political  plunder,  and  which 
acted  on  the  principle  quoted  from  Cowley,  that  the 
happiness  of  Ireland  should  not  weigh  against  the  "least 
conveniency  "  of  England.  He  summed  up  his  views  in  a 
remarkable  letter,'  to  be  presently  mentioned,  the  substance 
of  which  had  been  orally  communicated  to  Walpole.  He 
said  to  Walpole,  as  he  said  in  every  published  utterance : 
first,  that  the  colonists  were  still  Englishmen,  and  entitled 
to  English  rights ;   secondly,  that  their  trade  was  delib- 

*  Letters  on  Sacramental  Test  in  1738. 
.       «  To  Sir  Charles  Wigan,  July,  1732. 

3  To  Lord  Teterborough,  April  21, 1726. 


148  SWIFT.  [chap. 

erately  crushed,  purely  for  the  benefit  of  the  English 
of  England ;  thirdly,  that  all  valuable  preferments  were 
bestowed  upon  men  born  in  England,  as  a  matter  of 
course;  and,  finally,  that  in  consequence  of  this  the 
upper  classes,  deprived  of  all  other  openings,  were  forced 
to  rack-rent  their  tenants  to  such  a  degree  that  not  one 
farmer  in  the  kingdom  out  of  a  hundred  "  could  afford 
shoes  or  stockings  to  his  children,  or  to  eat  flesh  or  drink 
anything  better  than  sour  milk  and  water  twice  in  a  year ; 
so  that  the  whole  country,  except  the  Scotch  plantation 
in  the  north,  is  a  scene  of  misery  and  desolation  hardly 
to  be  matched  on  this  side  Lapland."  A  modern  reformer 
would  give  the  first  and  chief  place  to  this  social  misery. 
It  is  characteristic  that  Swift  comes  to  it  as  a  consequence 
from  the  injustice  to  his  own  class:  as,  again,  that  he 
appeals  to  Walpole,  not  on  the  simple  ground  that  the 
people  are  wretched,  but  on  the  ground  that  they  will 
be  soon  unable  to  pay  the  tribute  to  England,  which  he 
reckons  at  a  million  a  year.  But  his  conclusion  might  be 
accepted  by  any  Irish  patriot.  Whatever,  he  says,  can 
make  a  country  poor  and  despicable  concurs  in  the  case 
of  Ireland.  The  nation  is  controlled  by  laws  to  which 
it  does  not  consent;  disowned  by  its  brethren  and  coun- 
trymen ;  refused  the  liberty  of  trading  even  in  its  natural 
commodities;  forced  to  seek  for  justice  many  hundred 
miles  by  sea  and  land;  rendered  in  a  manner  incapable 
of  serving  the  King  and  country  in  any  place  of  honour, 
trust,  or  profit;  whilst  the  governors  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  governed,  except  what  may  occasionally  arise 
from  the  sense  of  justice  and  philanthropy. 

I  am  not  to  ask  how  far  Swift  was  right  in  his  judg- 
ments. Every  line  which  he  wrote  shows  that  he  was 
thoroughly  sincere  and  profoundly  stirred  by  his  convic- 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  149 

tions.  A  remarkable  pamphlet,  published  in  1720,  con- 
tained his  first  utterance  upon  the  subject.  It  is  an  ex- 
hortation to  the  Irish  to  use  only  Irish  manufactures. 
He  applies  to  Ireland  the  fable  of  Arachne  and  Pallas. 
The  goddess,  indignant  at  being  equalled  in  spinning, 
turned  her  rival  into  a  spider,  to  spin  forever  out  of  her 
own  bowels  in  a  narrow  compass.  He  always,  he  says, 
pitied  poor  Arachne  for  so  cruel  and  unjust  a  sentence, 
"  which,  however,  is  fully  executed  upon  us  by  England 
with  further  additions  of  rigour  and  severity;  for  the 
greatest  part  of  our  bowels  and  vitals  is  extracted,  without 
allowing  us  the  liberty  of  spinning  and  weaving  them." 
Swift  of  course  accepts  the  economic  fallacy  equally  taken 
for  granted  by  his  opponents,  and  fails  to  see  that  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  injured  themselves  as  well  as  each  other 
by  refusing  to  interchange  their  productions.  But  he 
utters  forcibly  his  righteous  indignation  against  the  con- 
temptuous injustice  of  the  English  rulers,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  "miserable  people"  are  being  reduced  "to 
a  worse  condition  than  the  peasants  in  France,  or  the  vas- 
sals in  Germany  and  Poland."  Slaves,  he  says,  have  a 
natural  disposition  to  be  tyrants;  and  he  himself,  when 
his  betters  give  him  a  kick,  is  apt  to  revenge  it  with  six 
upon  his  footman.  That  is  how  the  landlords  treat  their 
tenantry. 

The  printer  of  this  pamphlet  was  prosecuted.  The 
chief  justice  (Whitshed)  sent  back  the  jury  nine  times 
and  kept  them  eleven  hours  before  they  would  consent  to 
bring  in  a  "  special  verdict."  The  unpopularity  of  the 
prosecution  became  so  great  that  it  was  at  last  dropped. 
Four  years  afterwards  a  more  violent  agitation  broke  out. 
A  patent  had  been  given  to  a  certain  William  Wood  for 
supplying   Ireland   with  a  copper  coinage.     Many   com- 


L 


150  SWIFT.  [chap. 

plaints  had  been  made,  and  in  September,  1723,  addresses 
were  voted  by  the  Irish  Houses  of  Parliament,  declaring 
that  the  patent  had  been  obtained  by  clandestine  and  false 
representations;  that  it  was  mischievous  to  the  country; 
and  that  Wood  had  been  guilty  of  frauds  in  his  coinage. 
They  were  pacified  by  vague  promises ;  but  Walpole  went 
on  with  the  scheme  on  the  strength  of  a  favourable  report 
of  a  committee  of  the  Privy  Council ;  and  the  excitement 
was  already  serious  when  (in  1724)  Swift  published  the 
Drapier's  Letters^  which  give  him  his  chief  title  to  emi- 
nence as  a  patriotic  agitator. 

Swift  either  shared  or  took  advantage  of  the  general 
belief  that  the  mysteries  of  the  currency  are  unfathoma- 
ble to  the  human  intelligence.  They  have  to  do  with 
that  world  of  financial  magic  in  which  wealth  may  be 
made  out  of  paper,  and  all  ordinary  relations  of  cause  and 
effect  are  suspended.  There  is,  however,  no  real  mystery 
about  the  halfpence.  The  small  coins  which  do  not  form 
part  of  the  legal  tender  may  be  considered  primarily  as 
counters.  A  penny  is  a  penny,  so  long  as  twelve  are 
change  for  a  shilling.  It  is  not  in  the  least  necessary  for 
this  purpose  that  the  copper  contained  in  the  twelve 
penny  pieces  should  be  worth  or  nearly  worth  a  shilling. 
A  sovereign  can  never  be  worth  much  more  than  the  gold 
of  which  it  is  made.  But  at  the  present  day  bronze 
worth  only  twopence  is  coined  into  twelve  penny  pieces.* 
The  coined  bronze  is  worth  six  times  as  much  as  the  un- 
coined. The  small  coins  must  have  some  intrinsic  value 
to  deter  forgery,  and  must  be  made  of  good  materials  to 
stand  wear  and  tear.  If  these  conditions  be  observed,  and 
a  proper  number  be  issued,  the  value  of  the  penny  will  be 

*  The  ton  of  bronze,  I  am  informed,  is  coined  into  108,000  pence; 
that  is,  450/.     The  metal  is  worth  about  74/. 


Til]  WOOD'S  HALFPEXCE.  151 

no  more  affected  by  the  value  of  the  copper  than  the 
value  of  the  banknote  by  that  of  the  paper  on  which  it  is 
written.  This  opinion  assumes  that  the  copper  coins  can- 
not be  offered  or  demanded  in  payment  of  any  but  tri- 
fling debts.  The  halfpence  coined  by  Wood  seem  to  have 
fulfilled  these  conditions,  and  as  copper  worth  twopence 
(on  the  lowest  computation)  was  coined  into  ten  half- 
pence, worth  fivepence,  their  intrinsic  value  was  more 
than  double  that  of  modern  halfpence. 

The  halfpence,  then,  were  not  objectionable  upon  this 
ground.  Nay,  it  would  have  been  wasteful  to  make  them 
more  valuable.  It  would  have  been  as  foolish  to  use  more 
copper  for  the  pence  as  to  make  the  works  of  a  watch  of 
gold  if  brass  is  equally  durable  and  convenient.  But  an- 
other consequence  is  equally  clear.  The  effect  of  Wood's 
patent  was  that  a  mass  of  copper  worth  about  60,000/.^ 
became  worth  100,800^.  in  the  shape  of  halfpenny  pieces. 
There  was,  therefore,  a  balance  of  about  40,000/.  to  pay 
for  the  expenses  of  coinage.  It  would  have  been  waste  to 
get  rid  of  this  by  putting  more  copper  in  the  coins ;  but, 
if  so  large  a  profit  arose  from  the  transaction,  it  would  go 
to  somebody.  At  the  present  day  it  would  be  brought 
into  the  national  treasury.  This  was  not  the  way  in  which 
business  was  done  in  Ireland.  W^ood  was  to  pay  1000/.  a 
year  for  fourteen  years  to  the  Crown."  But  14,000/.  still 
leaves  a  large  margin  for  profit.     What  was  to  become  of 

^  Simon,  in  his  work  on  the  Irish  coinage,  makes  the  profit 
60,000/. ;  but  he  reckons  the  copper  at  Is.  a  pound,  whereas  from 
the  Report  of  the  Privy  Council  it  would  seem  to  be  properly  Is.  6d. 
a  pound.  Swift  and  most  later  writers  say  108,000/.,  but  the  right 
sum  is  100,800/. — 360  tons  coined  into  2s.  6c?.  a  pound. 

'  Monck  Mason  says  only  300/.  a  year,  but  this  is  the  sum  men- 
tioned in  the  Report  and  by  Swift. 


162  SWIFT.  [ciiAP. 

it?  According  to  the  admiring  biographer  of  Sir  R.  Wal- 
pole  the  patent  had  been  originally  given  by  Lord  Sun- 
derland to  the  Duchess  of  Kendal,  a  lady  whom  the  King 
delighted  to  honour.  She  already  received  3000Z.  a  year 
in  pensions  upon  the  Irish  Establishment,  and  she  sold 
this  patent  to  Wood  for  10,000/.  Enough  was  still  left 
to  give  Wood  a  handsome  profit;  as  in  transactions  of 
this  kind  every  accomplice  in  a  dirty  business  expects  to 
be  well  paid.  So  handsome,  indeed,  was  the  profit  that 
Wood  received  ultimately  a  pension  of  SOOOl.  for  eight 
years — 24,000/.,  that  is — in  consideration  of  abandoning 
the  patent.  It  was  right  and  proper  that  a  profit  should 
be  made  on  the  transaction,  but  shameful  that  it  should  be 
divided  between  the  King's  mistress  and  William  Wood, 
and  that  the  bargain  should  be  struck  without  consulting 
the  Irish  representatives,  and  maintained  in  spite  of  their 
protests.  The  Duchess  of  Kendal  was  to  be  allowed  to  take 
a  share  of  the  wretched  halfpence  in  the  pocket  of  every 
Irish  beggar.  A  more  disgraceful  transaction  could  hardly 
be  imagined,  or  one  more  calculated  to  justify  Swift's  view 
of  the  selfishness  and  corruption  of  the  English  rulers. 

Swift  saw  his  chance,  and  went  to  work  in  characteristic 
fashion,  with  unscrupulous  audacity  of  statement,  guided 
by  the  keenest  strategical  instinct.  He  struck  at  the  heart 
as  vigorously  as  he  had  done  in  the  Examiner,  but  with  re- 
sentment sharpened  by  ten  years  of  exile.  It  was  not  safe 
to  speak  of  the  Duchess  of  Kendal's  share  in  the  transac- 
tion, though  the  story,  as  poor  Archdeacon  Coxe  patheti- 
cally declares,  was  industriously  propagated.  But  the  case 
against  Wood  was  all  the  stronger.  Is  he  so  wicked,  asks 
Swift,  as  to  suppose  that  a  nation  is  to  be  ruined  that  he 
may  gain  three  or  four  score  thousand  pounds?  Hampden 
went  to  prison,  he  says,  rather  than  pay  a  few  shillings 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  153 

wrongfully;  I,  says  Swift,  would  rather  be  hanged  than 
have  all  my  "  property  taxed  at  seventeen  shillings  in  the 
pound  at  the  arbitrary  will  and  pleasure  of  the  venei-able 
Mr.  Wood."  A  simple  constitutional  precedent  miglit 
rouse  a  Hampden ;  but  to  stir  a  popular  agitation  it  is  as 
well  to  show  that  the  evil  actually  inflicted  is  gigantic,  in- 
dependently of  possible  results.  It  requires,  indeed,  some 
audacity  to  prove  that  debasement  of  the  copper  currency 
can  amount  to  a  tax  of  seventeen  shillings  in  the  pound  on 
all  property.  Here,  however,  Swift  might  simply  throw  the 
reins  upon  the  neck  of  his  fancy.  Anybody  may  make 
any  inferences  he  pleases  in  the  mysterious  regions  of  cur- 
rency ;  and  no  inferences,  it  seems,  were  too  audacious  for 
his  hearers,  though  we  are  left  to  doubt  how  far  Swift's 
wrath  had  generated  delusions  in  his  own  mind,  and  how 

I  far  he  perceived  that  other  minds  were  ready  to  be  de- 
luded. He  revels  in  prophesying  the  most  extravagant 
consequences.  The  country  will  be  undone;  the  tenants 
will  not  be  able  to  pay  their  rents;  "  the  farmers  must  rob, 
or  beg,  or  leave  the  country ;  the  shopkeepers  in  this  and 
'ievery  other  town  must  break  or  starve;  the  squire  will 
hoard  up  all  his  good  money  to  send  to  England  and  keep 
some  poor  tailor  or  weaver  in  his  house,  who  will  be  glad 
to  get  bread  at  any  rate.'"     Concrete  facts  are  given  to 

"^  help  the  imagination.  Squire  Connolly  must  have  250 
horses  to  bring  his  half-yearly  rents  to  town;  and  the 
poor  man  will  have  to  pay  thirty-six  of  Wood's  halfpence 
to  get  a  quart  of  twopenny  ale. 

How  is  this  proved  ?    One  argument  is  a  sufficient  speci- 
men.    Nobody,  according  to  the  patent,  was  to  be  forced 
to  take  Wood's  halfpence ;  nor  could  any  one  be  obliged 
to  receive  more  than  fivepence  halfpenny  in  any  one  pay- 
*  Letter  L 


154  SWIFT.  [ciiAP. 

mcnt.  This,  of  course,  meant  that  the  halfpence  could 
only  be  used  as  change,  and  a  man  must  pay  his  debts  in 
silver  or  gold  whenever  it  was  possible  to  use  a  sixpence. 
It  upsets  Swift's  statement  about  Squire  Connolly's  rents. 
But  Swift  is  equal  to  the  emergency.  The  rule  means, 
he  says,  that  every  man  must  take  fivepence  halfpenny  in 
every  payment,  if  it  he  offered;  which,  on  the  next  page, 
becomes  simply  in  every  payment;  therefore,  making  an 
easy  assumption  or  two,  he  reckons  that  you  will  receive 
160^.  a  year  in  these  halfpence;  and  therefore  (by  other 
assumptions)  lose  140/.  a  year.*  It  might  have  occurred  to 
Swift,  one  would  think,  that  both  parties  to  the  transaction 
could  not  possibly  be  losers.  But  he  calmly  assumes  that 
the  man  who  pays  will  lose  in  proportion  to  the  increased 
number  of  coins ;  and  the  man  who  receives,  in  proportion 
to  the  depreciated  value  of  each  coin.  He  does  not  see, 
or  think  it  worth  notice,  that  the  two  losses  obviously 
counterbalance  each  other;  and  he  has  an  easy  road  to 
prophesying  absolute  ruin  for  everybody.  It  would  be 
almost  as  great  a  compliment  to  call  this  sophistry  as  to 
dignify  with  the  name  of  satire  a  round  assertion  that  an 
honest  man  is  a  cheat  or  a  rogue. 

The  real  grievance,  however,  shows  through  the  sham 
argument.  "  It  is  no  loss  of  honour,"  thought  Swift,  "  to 
submit  to  the  lion ;  but  who,  with  the  figure  of  a  man, 
can  think  with  patience  of  being  devoured  alive  by  a 
rat?"  Why  should  Wood  have  this  profit  (even  if  more 
reasonably  estimated)  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the 
nation  ?  It  is,  says  Swift,  because  he  is  an  Englishman 
and  has  great  friends.  He  proposes  to  meet  the  attempt 
by  a  general  agreement  not  to  take  the  halfpence.  Briefly, 
the  halfpence  were  to  be  "  Boycotted." 
»  Letter  II. 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPEXCE.  155 

Before  this  second  letter  was  written  the  English  minis- 
ters had  become  alarmed.  A  report  of  the  Privy  Council 
(July  24,  1724)  defended  the  patent,  but  ended  by  recom- 
mending that  the  amount  to  be  coined  should  be  reduced 
to  40,000/.  Carteret  was  sent  out  as  Lord  Lieutenant  to 
get  this  compromise  accepted.  Swift  replied  by  a  third 
letter,  arguing  the  question  of  the  patent,  which  he  can 
"  never  suppose,"  or,  in  other  words,  which  everybody 
knew,  to  have  been  granted  as  a  "job  for  the  interest  of 
some  particular  person."  He  vigorously  asserts  that  the 
patent  can  never  make  it  obligatory  to  accept  the  half- 
pence, and  tells  a  story  much  to  the  purpose  from  old 
Leicester  experience.  The  justices  had  reduced  the  price 
of  ale  to  three-halfpence  a  quart.  One  of  them,  therefore, 
requested  that  they  would  make  another  order  to  appoint 
who  should  drink  it,  "for,  by  God,"  said  he,  "I  will 
not." 

The  argument  thus  naturally  led  to  a  further  and  more 
important  question.  The  discussion  as  to  the  patent 
brought  forward  the  question  of  right.  Wood  and  his 
friends,  according  to  Swift,  had  begun  to  declare  that  the 
resistance  meant  Jacobitism  and  rebellion ;  they  asserted 
that  the  Irish  were  ready  to  shake  off  their  dependence 
upon  the  Crown  of  England.  Swift  took  up  the  challenge 
and  answered  resolutely  and  eloquently.  He  took  up  the 
broadest  ground.  Ireland,  he  declared,  depended  upon 
England  in  no  other  sense  than  that  in  which  England 
depended  upon  Ireland.  Whoever  thinks  otherwise,  he 
said,  "  I,  M.  B.  despair,  desire  to  be  excepted ;  for  I 
declare,  next  under  God,  I  depend  only  on  the  King  my 
sovereign,  and  the  laws  of  my  own  country.  I  am  so  far," 
he  added,  "  from  depending  upon  the  people  of  England, 
that,  if  they  should  rebel,  I  would  take  arras  and  lose  every 


156  SWIFT.  [chap. 

drop  of  my  blood  to  hinder  the  Pretender  from  being 
King  of  Ireland." 

It  had  been  reported  that  somebody  (Walpole  presum- 
ably) had  sworn  to  thrust  the  halfpence  down  the  throats 
of  the  Irish.  The  remedy,  replied  Swift,  is  totally  in  your 
own  hands,  "  and  therefore  I  have  digressed  a  little  .... 
to  let  you  see  that  by  the  laws  of  God,  of  nature,  of 
nations,  and  of  your  own  country,  you  are  and  ought  to 
be  as  free  a  people  as  your  brethren  in  England."  As 
Swift  had  already  said  in  the  third  letter,  no  one  could 
believe  that  any  English  patent  would  stand  half  an  hour 
after  an  address  from  the  English  Houses  of  Parliament 
such  as  that  which  had  been  passed  against  Wood's  by  the 
Irish  Parliament.  Whatever  constitutional  doubts  might 
be  raised,  it  was,  therefore,  come  to  be  the  plain  question 
whether  or  not  the  English  ministers  should  simply  over- 
ride the  wishes  of  the  Irish  nation. 

Carteret,  upon  landing,  began  by  trying  to  suppress  his 
adversary.  A  reward  of  300^.  was  offered  for  the  dis- 
covery of  the  author  of  the  fourth  letter.  A  prosecution 
was  ordered  against  the  printer.  Swift  went  to  the  levee 
of  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  and  reproached  him  bitterly  for 
his  severity  against  a  poor  tradesman  who  had  published 
papers  for  the  good  of  his  country.  Carteret  answered  in 
a  happy  quotation  from  Virgil,  a  feat  which  always  seems 
to  have  brought  consolation  to  the  statesman  of  that  day : 

"  Res  dura  et  regni  novitas  me  talia  cogunt 
Moliri." 

Another  story  is  more  characteristic.  Swift's  butler  had 
acted  as  his  amanuensis,  and  absented  himself  one  night 
whilst  the  proclamation  was  running.  Swift  thought  that 
the  butler  was  either  treacherous  or  presuming  upon  his 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  157 

knowledge  of  the  secret.  As  soon  as  the  man  returned 
he  ordered  him  to  strip  off  his  livery  and  begone.  "I  am 
in  your  power,"  he  said,  "  and  for  that  very  reason  I  will 
not  stand  your  insolence."  The  poor  butler  departed,  but 
preserved  his  fidelity;  and  Swift,  when  the  tempest  had 
blown  over,  rewarded  him  by  appointing  him  verger  in 
the  cathedral.  The  grand  jury  threw  out  the  bill  against 
the  printer  in  spite  of  all  Whitshed's  efforts ;  they  were 
discharged;  and  the  next  grand  jury  presented  Wood's 
halfpence  as  a  nuisance.  Carteret  gave  way,  the  patent 
was  surrendered,  and  Swift  might  congratulate  himself 
upon  a  complete  victory. 

The  conclusion  is  in  one  respect  rather  absurd.  The 
Irish  succeeded  in  rejecting  a  real  benefit  at  the  cost  of 
paying  AVood  the  profit  which  he  would  have  made,  had 
he  been  allowed  to  confer  it.  Another  point  must  be 
admitted.  Swift's  audacious  misstatements  were  success- 
ful for  the  time  in  rousing  the  spirit  of  the  people.  They 
have  led,  however,  to  a  very  erroneous  estimate  of  the 
whole  case.  English  statesmen  and  historians^  have  found 
it  so  easy  to  expose  his  errors  that  they  have  thought  his 
whole  case  absurd.  The  grievance  was  not  what  it  was 
represented;  therefore  it  is  argued  that  there  was  no 
grievance.  The  very  essence  of  the  case  was  that  the  Irish 
people  were  to  be  plundered  by  the  German  mistress ;  and 
such  plunder  was  possible  because  the  English  people,  as 
Swift  says,  never  thought  of  Ireland  except  when  there 
was  nothing  else  to  be  talked  of  in  the  coffee-houses.'' 
Owing  to  the  conditions  of  the  controversy  this  grievance 

'  See,  for  example,  Lord  Stanhope's  account.  For  the  other  view 
see  Mr.  Lecky's  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  and  Mr.  Froude's 
Eyiglish  in  Ireland. 

2  Letter  IV. 


158  SWIFT.  [chap. 

only  caine  out  gradually,  and  could  never  be  fully  stated. 
Swift  could  never  do  more  than  hint  at  the  transaction. 
His  letters  (including  three  which  appeared  after  the  last 
mentioned,  enforcing  the  same  case)  have  often  been  cited 
as  models  of  eloquence,  and  compared  to  Demosthenes! 
We  must  make  some  deduction  from  this,  as  in  the  case 
of  his  former  political  pamphlets.  The  intensity  of  his 
absorption  in  the  immediate  end  deprives  them  of  some 
literary  merits ;  and  we,  to  whom  the  sophistries  are  pal- 
pable enough,  are  apt  to  resent  them.  Anybody  can  be 
effective  in  a  way,  if  he  chooses  to  lie  boldly.  Yet,  in 
another  sense,  it  is  hard  to  over-praise  the  letters.  They 
have  in  a  high  degree  the  peculiar  stamp  of  Swift's  genius : 
the  vein  of  the  most  nervous  common-sense  and  pithy 
assertion,  with  an  undercurrent  of  intense  passion,  the 
more  impressive  because  it  is  never  allowed  to  exhale  in 
mere  rhetoric. 

Swift's  success,  the  dauntless  front  which  he  had  shown 
to  the  oppressor,  made  him  the  idol  of  his  countrymen. 
A  Drapier's  Club  was  formed  in  his  honour,  which  col- 
lected the  letters  and  drank  toasts  and  sang  songs  to 
celebrate  their  hero.  In  a  sad  letter  to  Pope,  in  1737,  he 
complains  that  none  of  his  equals  care  for  him ;  but  adds 
that  as  he  walks  the  streets  he  has  "a  thousand  hats  and 
blessings  upon  old  scores  which  those  we  call  the  gentry 
have  forgot."  The  people  received  him  as  their  cham- 
pion. When  he  returned  from  England,  in  1726,  bells 
were  rung,  bonfires  lighted,  and  a  guard  of  honour  es- 
corted him  to  the  deanery.  Towns  voted  him  their 
freedom  and  received  him  like  a  prince.  When  Walpole 
spoke  of  arresting  him  a  prudent  friend  told  the  minister 
that  the  messenger  would  require  a  guard  of  ten  thousand 
soldiers.     Corporations  asked  his  advice  in  elections,  and 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  169 

the  weavers  appealed  to  liim  on  questions  about  their  trade. 
In  one  of  his  satires*  Swift  had  attacked  a  certain  Ser- 
jeant Bettesworth : 

"  Thus  at  the  bar  the  booby  Bettesworth, 
Though  half-a-crown  o'erpays  his  sweat's  worth." 

Bettesworth  called  upon  him  with,  as  Swift  reports,  a  knife 
in  his  pocket,  and  complained  in  such  terms  as  to  imply 
some  intention  of  personal  violence.  The  neighbours  in- 
stantly sent  a  deputation  to  the  Dean,  proposing  to  take 
vengeance  upon  Bettesworth ;  and  though  he  induced  them 
to  disperse  peaceably,  they  formed  a  guard  to  watch  the 
house ;  and  Bettesworth  complained  that  his  attack  upon 
the  Dean  had  lowered  his  professional  income  by  1200/. 
a  year.  A  quaint  example  of  his  popularity  is  given  by 
Sheridan.  A  great  crowd  had  collected  to  see  an  eclipse. 
Swift  thereupon  sent  out  the  bellman  to  give  notice  that 
the  eclipse  had  been  postponed  by  the  Dean's  orders,  and 
the  crowd  dispersed. 

Influence  with  the  people,  however,  could  not  bring 
Swift  back  to  power.  At  one  time  there  seemed  to  be  a 
gleam  of  hope.  Swift  visited  England  twice  in  1726  and 
1727.  He  paid  long  visits  to  his  old  friend  Pope,  and 
again  met  Bolingbroke,  now  returned  from  exile,  and  try- 
ing to  make  a  place  in  English  politics.  Peterborough 
introduced  the  Dean  to  Walpole,  to  whom  Swift  detailed 
his  views  upon  Irish  politics.  Walpole  was  the  last  man 
to  set  about  a  great  reform  from  mere  considerations  of 
justice  and  philanthropy,  and  was  not  likely  to  trust  a 
confidant  of  Bolingbroke.  He  was  civil  but  indifferent. 
Swift,  however,  was  introduced  by  his  friends  to  Mrs. 
Howard,  the  mistress  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  soon  to  b(H 
'  "  On  the  words  Brother  Protestants,  &c." 
8 


160  SWIFT.  [chap. 

come  George  II.  The  Princess,  afterwards  Queen  Caro- 
line, ordered  Swift  to  come  and  see  her,  and  he  complied, 
as  he  says,  after  nine  commands.  He  told  her  that  she 
had  lately  seen  a  wild  boy  from  Germany,  and  now  he 
supposed  she  wanted  to  see  a  wild  Dean  from  Ireland. 
Some  civilities  passed ;  Swift  offered  some  plaids  of  Irish 
manufacture,  and  the  Princess  promised  some  medals  in 
return.  When,  in  the  next  year,  George  I.  died,  the  Op- 
position hoped  great  things  from  the  change.  Pulteney 
had  tried  to  get  Swift's  powerful  help  for  the  Craftsman^ 
the  Opposition  organ ;  and  the  Opposition  hoped  to  up- 
set Walpole.  Swift,  who  had  thought  of  going  to  France 
for  his  health,  asked  Mrs.  Howard's  advice.  She  recom- 
mended him  to  stay ;  and  he  took  the  recommendation  as 
amounting  to  a  promise  of  support.  He  had  some  hopes 
of  obtaining  English  preferment  in  exchange  for  his  dean- 
ery in  what  he  calls  (in  the  date  to  one  of  his  letters') 
"wretched  Dublin  in  miserable  Ireland."  It  soon  ap- 
peared, however,  that  the  mistress  was  powerless ;  and  that 
Walpole  was  to  be  as  firm  as  ever  in  his  seat.  Swift  re- 
turned to  Ireland,  never  again  to  leave  it :  to  lose  soon  af- 
terwards his  beloved  Stella,  and  nurse  an  additional  grudge 
against  courts  and  favourites. 

The  bitterness  with  which  he  resented  Mrs.  Howard's 
supposed  faithlessness  is  painfully  illustrative,  in  truth,  of 
the  morbid  state  of  mind  which  was  growing  upon  him. 
"You  think,"  he  says  to  Bolingbroke  in  1729,  "  as  I  ought 
to  think,  that  it  is  time  for  me  to  have  done  with  the 
world ;  and  so  I  would,  if  I  could  get  into  a  better  before 
I  was  called  into  the  best,  and  not  die  here  in  a  rage,  like 
a  poisoned  rat  in  a  hole."  That  terrible  phrase  expresses 
but  too  vividly  the  state  of  mind  which  was  now  be- 
^  To  Lord  Stafford, :N'ovember  26, 1725. 


til]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  161 

coming  familiar  to  bim.  Separated  by  deatb  and  absence 
from  his  best  friends,  and  tormented  by  increasing  illness, 
he  looked  out  upon  a  state  of  things  in  which  he  could 
see  no  ground  for  hope.  The  resistance  to  Wood's  half- 
pence had  staved  off  immediate  ruin,  but  had  not  cured 
the  fundamental  evil.  Some  tracts  upon  Irish  affairs, 
written  after  the  Drajiier^s  Letters^  sufficiently  indicate  his 
despairing  vein.  "I  am,"  he  says  in  1737,  when  propos- 
ing some  remedy  for  the  swarms  of  beggars  in  Dublin, "  a 
desponder  by  nature ;"  and  he  has  found  out  that  the  peo- 
ple will  never  stir  themselves  to  remove  a  single  grievance. 
His  old  prejudices  were  as  keen  as  ever,  and  could  dictate 
personal  outbursts.  He  attacked  the  bishops  bitterly  for 
offering  certain  measures  which  in  his  view  sacrificed  the 
permanent  interests  of  the  Church  to  that  of  the  actual 
occupants.  He  showed  his  own  sincerity  by  refusing  to 
take  fines  for  leases  which  would  have  benefited  himself 
at  the  expense  of  his  successors.  With  equal  earnestness 
he  still  clung  to  the  Test  Acts,  and  assailed  the  Protestant 
Dissenters  with  all  his  old  bitterness,  and  ridiculed  their 
claims  to  brotherhood  with  Churchmen.  To  the  end  he 
was  a  Churchman  before  everything.  One  of  the  last  of 
his  poetical  performances  was  prompted  by  the  sanction 
given  by  the  Irish  Parliament  to  an  opposition  to  certain 
"  titles  of  ejectment."  He  had  defended  the  right  of  the 
Irish  Parliament  against  English  rulers ;  but  when  it  at- 
tacked the  interests  of  his  Church  his  fury  showed  itself 
in  the  most  savage  satire  that  he  ever  wrote,  the  Legion 
Club.     It  is  an  explosion  of  wrath  tinged  with  madness : 

-    "  Could  I  from  the  building's  top 
Hear  the  rattling  thunder  drop, 
While  the  devil  upon  the  roof 
(If  the  devil  be  thunder-proof) 


162  SWIFT.  [CHAK. 

Should  with  poker  fiery  red 
Crack  the  stones  and  melt  the  lead, 
Drive  them  down  on  every  skull 
When  the  den  of  thieves  is  full ; 
Quite  destroy  the  harpies'  nest, 
How  might  this  our  isle  be  blest !" 

What  follows  fully  keeps  up  to  this  level.  Swift  flings 
filth  like  a  maniac,  plunges  into  ferocious  personalities, 
and  ends  fitly  with  the  execration — 

"May  their  God,  the  devil,  confound  them!" 

He  was  seized  with  one  of  his  fits  whilst  writing  the  poem, 
and  was  never  afterwards  capable  of  sustained  composition. 
Some  further  pamphlets — especially  one  on  the  State 
of  Ireland — repeat  and  enforce  his  views.  One  of  them 
requires  special  mention.  The  Modest  Proposal  (written 
in  1729)  for  Preventing  the  Children  of  Poor  People  in 
Ireland  from  being  a  Burden  to  their  Parents  or  Country — 
the  proposal  being  that  they  should  be  turned  into  articles 
of  food — gives  the  very  essence  of  Swift's  feeling,  and 
is  one  of  the  most  tremendous  pieces  of  satire  in  existence. 
It  shows  the  quality  already  noticed.  Swift  is  burning 
with  a  passion  the  glow  of  which  makes  other  passions 
look  cold,  as  it  is  said  that  some  bright  lights  cause  other 
illuminating  objects  to  cast  a  shadow.  Yet  his  face  is 
absolutely  grave,  and  he  details  his  plan  as  calmly  as  a 
modern  projector  suggesting  the  importation  of  Australian 
meat.  The  superficial  coolness  may  be  revolting  to  ten- 
der-hearted people,  and  has,  indeed,  led  to  condemnation  of 
the  supposed  ferocity  of  the  author  almost  as  surprising  as 
the  criticisms  which  can  see  in  it  nothing  but  an  exquisite 
piece  of  humour.  It  is,  in  truth,  fearful  to  read  even  now. 
Yet  we  can  forgive  and  even  sympathize  when  we  take  it 


VII.]  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  103 

for  what  it  really  is — tlic  most  complete  expression  of 
burning  indignation  against  intolerable  wrongs.  It  utters, 
indeed,  a  serious  conviction.  "I  confess  myself,"  says 
Swift  in  a  remarkable  paper,*  "  to  be  touched  with  a  very 
sensible  pleasure  when  I  hear  of  a  mortality  in  any  coun- 
try parish  or  village,  where  the  wretches  are  forced  to  pay 
for  a  filthy  cabin  and  two  ridges  of  potatoes  treble  the 
worth ;  brought  up  to  steal  and  beg  for  want  of  work ; 
to  whom  death  would  be  the  best  thing  to  be  wished 
for,  on  account  both  of  themselves  and  the  public."  He 
remarks  in  the  same  place  on  the  lamentable  contradic- 
tion presented  in  Ireland  to  the  maxim  that  the  "people 
are  the  riches  of  a  nation,"  and  the  Modest  Proposal  is 
the  fullest  comment  on  this  melancholy  reflection.  After 
many  visionary  proposals  he  has  at  last  hit  upon  the  plan, 
which  has  at  least  the  advantage  that  by  adopting  it  "  we 
can  incur  no  danger  of  disobliging  England.  For  this 
kind  of  commodity  will  not  bear  exportation,  the  flesh  be- 
ing of  too  tender  a  consistence  to  admit  a  long  continuance 
in  salt,  although,  perhaps,  I  could  name  a  country  which 
would  be  glad  to  eat  up  a  whole  nation  without  it." 

Swift  once  asked  Dclany'*  whether  the  "  corruptions 
and  villanies  of  men  in  power  did  not  eat  his  flesh  and 
exhaust  his  spirits  ?"  "  No,"  said  Delany.  "  Why,  how 
can  you  help  it?"  said  Swift.  "Because,"  replied  Delany, 
"  I  am  commanded  to  the  contrary— /re^  not  thyself  be- 
cause of  the  ungodly.''''  That,  like  other  wise  maxims,  is 
capable  of  an  ambiguous  application.  As  Delany  took  it. 
Swift  might  perhaps  have  replied  that  it  was  a  very  com- 
fortable maxim — for  the  ungodly.  His  own  application  of 
Scripture  is  different.  It  tells  us,  he  says,  in  his  proposal 
for  using  Irish  manufactures,  that  "  oppression  makes  a 
*  Maxims  Controlled  in  Ireland.  ^  Delany,  p.  148. 


164  SWIFT.  [chap. 

wise  man  mad."  If,  therefore,  some  men  are  not  mad,  it 
must  be  because  they  are  not  wise.  In  truth,  it  is  charac- 
teristic of  Swift  that  he  could  never  learn  the  great  lesson 
of  submission  even  to  the  inevitable.  He  could  not,  like 
an  easy-going  Delany,  submit  to  oppression  which  might 
possibly  be  resisted  with  success;  but  as  little  could  he 
submit  when  all  resistance  was  hopeless.  His  rage,  which 
could  find  no  better  outlet,  burnt  inwardly  and  drove  him 
mad.  It  is  very  interesting  to  compare  Swift's  wrathful 
denunciations  with  Berkeley's  treatment  of  the  same  before 
in  the  Querist  (l 735-37).  Berkeley  is  full  of  luminous 
suggestions  upon  economical  questions  which  are  entirely 
beyond  Swift's  mark.  He  is  in  a  region  quite  above  the 
sophistries  of  the  Drapier^s  Letters.  He  sees  equally  the 
terrible  grievance  that  no  people  in  the  world  is  so  beggar- 
ly, wretched,  and  destitute  as  the  common  Irish.  But  he 
thinks  all  complaints  against  the  English  rule  useless,  and 
therefore  foolish.  If  the  English  restrain  our  trade  ill-ad- 
visedly,  is  it  not,  he  asks,  plainly  our  interest  to  accommodate 
ourselves  to  them  ?  (No.  136.)  Have  we  not  the  advantage 
of  English  protection  without  sharing  English  responsibili- 
ties ?  He  asks  "  whether  England  doth  not  really  love  us 
and  wish  well  to  us  as  bone  of  her  bone  and  flesh  of  her 
flesh?  and  whether  it  be  not  our  part  to  cultivate  this  love 
and  affection  all  manner  of  ways?"  (Nos.  322,  323.)  One 
can  fancy  how  Swift  must  have  received  this  characteris- 
tic suggestion  of  the  admirable  Berkeley,  who  could  not 
bring  himself  to  think  ill  of  any  one.  Berkeley's  main 
contention  is,  no  doubt,  sound  in  itself,  namely,  that  the 
welfare  of  the  country  really  depended  on  the  industry 
and  economy  of  its  inhabitants,  and  that  such  qualities 
would  have  made  the  Irish  comfortable  in  spite  of  all 
English  restrictions  and  Government  abuses.     But,  then. 


VII. J  WOOD'S  HALFPENCE.  165 

Swift  might  well  have  answered  that  such  general  maxims 
are  idle.  It  is  all  very  well  for  divines  to  tell  people  to 
become  good,  and  to  find  out  that  then  they  will  be 
happy.  But  how  are  they  to  be  made  good?  Are  the 
Irish  intrinsically  worse  than  other  men,  or  is  their  lazi- 
ness and  restlessness  due  to  special  and  removable  circum- 
stances ?  In  the  latter  case  is  there  not  more  real  value 
in  attacking  tangible  evils  than  in  propounding  general 
maxims  and  calling  upon  all  men  to  submit  to  oppression, 
and  even  to  believe  in  the  oppressor's  good-will,  in  the 
name  of  Christian  charity?  To  answer  those  questions 
would  be  to  plunge  into  interminable  and  hopeless  con- 
troversies. Meanwhile,  Swift's  fierce  indignation  against 
English  oppression  might  almost  as  well  have  been  directed 
against  a  law  of  nature  for  any  immediate  result.  Whether 
the  rousing  of  the  national  spirit  was  any  benefit  is  a  ques- 
tion which  I  must  leave  to  others.  In  any  case,  the  work, 
however  darkened  by  personal  feeling  or  love  of  class-priv- 
ilege, expressed  as  hearty  a  hatred  of  oppression  as  ever 
aninmted  a  human  being. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


The  winter  of  1 71 3-' 14  passed  by  Swift  in  England  was 
full  of  anxiety  and  vexation.  He  found  time,  however, 
to  join  in  a  remarkable  literary  association.  The  so-called 
Scriblerus  Club  does  not  appear,  indeed,  to  have  had  any 
definite  organization.  The  rising  young  wits.  Pope  and 
Gay,  both  of  them  born  in  1688,  were  already  becoming 
famous,  and  were  taken  up  by  Swift,  still  in  the  zenith  of 
his  political  power.  Parnell,  a  few  years  their  senior,  had 
been  introduced  by  Swift  to  Oxford  as  a  convert  from 
Whiggism.  All  three  became  intimate  with  Swift  and 
Arbuthnot,  the  most  learned  and  amiable  of  the  whole 
circle  of  Swift's  friends.  Swift  declared  him  to  have 
every  quality  that  could  make  a  man  amiable  and  useful, 
with  but  one  defect  —  he  had  "a  sort  of  slouch  in  his 
walk."  He  was  loved  and  respected  by  every  one,  and  was 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Brothers.  Swift  and 
Arbuthnot  and  their  three  juniors  discussed  literary  plans 
in  the  midst  of  the  growing  political  excitement.  Even 
Oxford  used,  as  Pope  tells  us,  to  amuse  himself  during 
the  very  crisis  of  his  fate  by  scribbling  verses  and  talking 
nonsense  with  the  members  of  this  informal  club,  and 
some  doggerel  lines  exchanged  with  him  remain  as  a  speci- 
men— a  poor  one,  it  is  to  be  hoped — of  their  intercourse. 


CHAP.  VIII.]  •'  GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  1G7 

The  familiarity  thus  begun  continued  througli  the  life  of 
the  members.  Swift  can  have  seen  very  little  of  Pope. 
He  hardly  made  his  acquaintance  till  the  latter  part  of 
1713;  they  parted  in  the  summer  of  1714;  and  never 
met  again  except  in  Swift's  two  visits  to  England  in 
lV26-'27.  Yet  their  correspondence  shows  an  affection 
which  was,  no  doubt,  heightened  by  the  consciousness  of 
each  that  the  friendship  of  his  most  famous  contemporary 
author  was  creditable ;  but  which,  upon  Swift's  side,  at 
least,  was  thoroughly  sincere  and  cordial,  and  strengthened 
with  advancing  years. 

The  final  cause  of  the  club  was  supposed  to  be  the 
composition  of  a  joint-stock  satire.  We  learn  from  an 
interesting  letter^  that  Pope  formed  the  original  design;' 
though  Swift  thought  that  Arbuthnot  was  the  only  one 
capable  of  carrying  it  out.  The  scheme  was  to  write  the 
memoirs  of  an  imaginary  pedant,  who  had  dabbled  with 
equal  w^'ong-headedness  in  all  kinds  of  knowledge ;  and 
thus  recalls  Swift's  early  performances — the  Battle  of  the 
Books  and  the  Tale  of  a  Tub.  Arbuthnot  begs  Swift  to 
work  upon  it  during  his  melancholy  retirement  at  Let- 
combe.  Swift  had  other  things  to  occupy  his  mind ;  and 
upon  the  dispersion  of  the  party  the  club  fell  into  abey- 
ance. Fragments  of  the  original  plan  were  carried  out  by 
Pope  and  Arbuthnot,  and  form  part  of  the  Miscellanies, 
to  which  Swift  contributed  a  number  of  poetical  scraps, 
published  under  Pope's  direction  in  1726-27.  It  seems 
probable  that  Gulliver  originated  in  Swift's  mind  in  the 
course  of  his  meditations  upon  Scriblerus.  The  composi- 
tion of  Gulliver  was  one  of  the  occupations  by  which  he 
amused  himself  after  recovering  from  the  great  shock  of 

*  It  is  in  the  Forster  library,  and,  I  believe,  unpublished,  in  answer 
to  Arbuthnot's  letter  mentioned  in  the  text. 
8*      . 


168  SWIFT.  [chap. 

his  "exile."  He  worked,  as  ho  seems  always  to  have 
done,  slowly  and  intermittently.  Part  of  Brobdingnag  at 
least,  as  we  learn  from  a  letter  of  Vanessa's,  was  in  exist- 
ence by  1722.  Swift  brought  the  whole  manuscript  to 
England  in  1726,  and  it  was  published  anonymously  in 
the  following  winter.  The  success  was  instantaneous  and 
overwhelming.  "I  will  make  over  all  my  profits"  (in  a 
work  then  being  pubhshed)  "to  you,"  writes  Arbuthnot, 
"  for  the  property  of  Gulliver's  Travels^  which,  I  believe, 
will  have  as  great  a  run  as  John  Bunyan."  The  anticipa- 
tion was  amply  fulfilled.  Gulliver's  Travels  is  one  of 
the  very  few  books  some  knowledge  of  which  may  be 
fairly  assumed  in  any  one  who  reads  anything.  Yet  some- 
thing must  be  said  of  the  secret  of  the  astonishing  success 
of  this  unique  performance. 

One  remark  is  obvious.  Gulliver'' s  Travels  (omitting 
certain  passages)  is  almost  the  most  delightful  children's 
book  ever  written.  Yet  it  has  been  equally  valued  as  an 
unrivalled  satire.  Old  Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 
was  "  in  raptures  with  it,"  says  Gay,  "  and  can  dream  of 
nothing  else."  She  forgives  his  bitter  attacks  upon  her 
party  in  consideration  of  his  assault  upon  human  nature. 
He  gives,  she  declares,  "  the  most  accurate  "  (that  is,  of 
course  the  most  scornful)  "account  of  kings,  ministers, 
bishops,  and  courts  of  justice  that  is  possible  to  be  writ" 
Another  curious  testimony  may  be  noticed.  Godwin,  when 
tracing  all  evils  to  the  baneful  effects  of  government,  de- 
clares that  the  author  of  Gulliver  showed  a  "  more  pro- 
found insight  into  the  true  principles  of  political  justice 
than  any  preceding  or  contemporary  author."  The  play- 
ful form  was  unfortunate,  thinks  this  grave  philosopher, 
as  blinding  mankind  to  the  "  inestimable  wisdom  "  of  the 
work.     This  double  triumph  is  remarkable.     We  may  not 


VIII.]  "GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  169 

share  the  opinions  of  the  cynics  of  the  day,  or  of  the  rev- 
olutionists of  a  later  generation,  but  it  is  strange  that  they 
should  be  fascinated  by  a  work  which  is  studied  with  de- 
light, without  the  faintest  suspicion  of  any  ulterior  meaning, 
by  the  infantile  mind. 

The  charm  of  Gulliver  for  the  young  depends  upon  an 
obvious  quality,  which  is  indicated  in  Swift's  report  of 
the  criticism  by  an  Irish  bishop,  who  said  that  "  the  book 
was  full  of  improbable  lies,  and  for  his  part  he  hardly 
believed  a  word  of  it."  There  is  something  pleasant  in 
the  intense  gravity  of  the  narrative,  which  recalls  and  may 
have  been  partly  suggested  by  Robinson  Crusoe,  though 
it  came  naturally  to  Swift.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
his  delight  in  mystification,  and  the  detailed  realization  of 
pure  fiction  seems  to  have  been  delightful  in  itself.  The 
Partridge  pamphlets  and  its  various  practical  jokes  are 
illustrations  of  a  tendency  which  fell  in  with  the  spirit  of 
the  time,  and  of  which  Gulliver  may  be  regarded  as  the 
highest  manifestation.  Swift's  peculiarity  is  in  the  curious 
sobriety  of  fancy,  which  leads  him  to  keep  in  his  most 
daring  flights  upon  the  confines  of  the  possible.  In  the 
imaginary  travels  of  Lucian  and  Rabelais,  to  which  Gul- 
liver is  generally  compared,  we  frankly  take  leave  of  the 
real  world  altogether.  We  are  treated  with  arbitrary 
and  monstrous  combinations  which  may  be  amusing,  but 
which  do  not  challenge  even  a  semblance  of  belief.  In 
Gulliver  this  is  so  little  the  case  that  it  can  hardly  be  said 
in  strictness  that  the  fundamental  assumptions  are  even 
impossible.  Why  should  there  not  be  creatures  in  hu- 
man form  with  whom,  as  in  Lilliput,  one  of  our  inches 
represents  a  foot,  or,  as  in  Brobdingnag,  one  of  our  feet 
represents  an  inch?  The  assumption  is  so  modest  that 
we  are  presented — it  may  be  said — with  a  definite  and 


170  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

soluble  problem.  We  have  not,  as  in  other  fictitious 
worlds,  to  deal  with  a  state  of  things  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation is  bewildered,  but  with  one  in  which  it  is  agreeably 
stimulated.  We  have  certainly  to  consider  an  extreme  and 
exceptional  case,  but  one  to  which  all  the  ordinary  laws 
of  human  nature  are  still  strictly  applicable.  In  Vol- 
taire's trifle,  Micromegas,  we  are  presented  to  beings  eight 
leagues  in  height  and  endowed  with  seventy-two  senses. 
For  Voltaire's  purpose  the  stupendous  exaggeration  is 
necessary,  for  he  wishes  to  insist  upon  the  minuteness  of 
human  capacities.  But  the  assumption,  of  course,  dis- 
qualifies us  from  taking  any  intelligent  interest  in  a  region 
where  no  precedent  is  available  for  our  guidance.  We 
are  in  the  air ;  anything  and  everything  is  possible.  But 
Swift  modestly  varies  only  one  element  in  the  problem. 
Imagine  giants  and  dwarfs  as  tall  as  a  house  or  as  low  as 
a  footstool,  and  let  us  see  what  comes  of  it.  That  is  a 
plain,  almost  a  mathematical,  problem  ;  and  we  can,  there- 
fore, judge  his  success,  and  receive  pleasure  from  the  in- 
genuity and  verisimilitude  of  his  creations. 

"When  you  have  once  thought  of  big  men  and  little 
men,"  said  Johnson,  perversely  enough,  "  it  is  easy  to  do 
the  rest."  The  first  step  might,  perhaps,  seem  in  this  case 
to  be  the  easiest;  yet  nobody  ever  thought  of  it  before 
Swift,  and  nobody  has  ever  had  similar  good  fortune 
since.  There  is  no  other  fictitious  world  the  denizens  of 
which  have  become  so  real  for  us,  and  which  has  supplied 
so  many  images  familiar  to  every  educated  mind.  But 
the  apparent  ease  is  due  to  the  extreme  consistency  and 
sound  judgment  of  Swift's  realization.  The  conclusions 
follow  so  inevitably  from  the  primary  data  that  when 
they  are  once  drawn  we  agree  that  they  could  not  have 
been  otherwise ;  and  infer,  rashly,  that  anybody  else  could 


VIII.]  "GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  171 

have  drawn  them.  It  is  as  easy  as  lying ;  but  everybody 
who  has  seriously  tried  the  experiment  knows  that  even 
lying  is  by  no  means  so  easy  as  it  appears  at  first  sight. 
In  fact,  Swift's  success  is  something  unique.  The  charm- 
ing plausibility  of  every  incident,  throughout  the  two  first 
parts,  commends  itself  to  children,  who  enjoy  definite  con- 
crete images,  and  are  fascinated  by  a  world  which  is  at 
once  full  of  marvels,  surpassing  Jack  the  Giant  Killer  and 
the  wonders  seen  by  Sindbad,  and  yet  as  obviously  and  un- 
deniably true  as  the  adventures  of  Robinson  Crusoe  him- 
self. Nobody  who  has  read  the  book  can  ever  forget  it ; 
and  we  may  add  that  besides  the  childlike  pleasure  which 
arises  from  a  distinct  realization  of  a  strange  world  of 
fancy,  the  two  first  books  are  sufficiently  good-humoured. 
Swift  seems  to  be  amused,  as  well  as  amusing.  They 
were  probably  written  during  the  least  intolerable  part  of 
bis  exile.  The  period  of  composition  includes  the  years 
of  the  Vanessa  tragedy  and  of  the  war  of  Wood's  half- 
pence ;  it  was  finished  when  Stella's  illness  was  becoming 
constantly  more  threatening,  and  published  little  more 
than  a  year  before  her  death.  The  last  books  show 
Swift's  most  savage  temper;  but  we  may  hope  that,  in 
spite  of  disease,  disappointments,  and  a  growing  alienation 
from  mankind,  Swift  could  still  enjoy  an  occasional  piece 
of  spontaneous,  unadulterated  fun.  He  could  still  forget 
his  cares,  and  throw  the  reins  on  the  neck  of  his  fancy. 
At  times  there  is  a  certain  charm  even  in  the  characters. 
Every  one  has  a  liking  for  the  giant  maid-of-all-work, 
Glumdalelitch,  whose  affection  for  her  plaything  is  a 
quaint  inversion  of  the  ordinary  relations  between  Swift 
and  his  feminine  adorers.  The  grave,  stern,  irascible  man 
can  relax  after  a  sort,  though  his  strange  idiosyncrasy 
comes  out  as  distinctly  in  his  relaxation  as  in  his  passions. 


A 


172  SWIFT.  [chap. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  this  aspect  of  Gulliver,  which  is 
obvious  to  every  one.     There  is  another  question  which 
we  are  forced  to  ask,  and  which  is  not  very  easy  to  an- 
swer.    What  does  Gulliver  mean?     It  is  clearly  a  satire 
i  — but  who  and  what  are  its  objects?     Swift  states  his 
own  view  very  unequivocally.     "I  heartily  hate  and  de- 
test that  animal  called  man,"  he  says/  "although  I  heart- 
I   ily  love  John,  Peter,  Thomas,  and  so  forth."     He  declares 
that   man    is   not  an  animal  rationale^  but  only  rationis 
capax ;  and  he  then  adds,  "Upon  this  great  foundation 
/         of  misanthropy  ....  the  whole  building  of  my  travels  is 
erected."     "If  the  world  had  but  a  dozen  Arbutbnots  in 
it,"  he  says  in  the  same  letter,  "  I  would  burn  my  travels." 
He  indulges  in  a  similar  reflection  to  Sheridan.'     "  Expect 
no  more  from  man,"  he  says,  "than  such  an  animal  is  ca- 
pable of,  and  you  will  every  day  find  my  description   of 
Yahoos  more  resembling.     You  should   think   and   deal 
with  every  man  as  a  villain,  without  calling  him  so,  or 
\  flying  from  him  or  valuing  him  less.     This  is  an  old  true 

\         lesson."     In  spite  of  these  avowals,  of  a  kind  which,  in 
\        Swift,  must  not  be  taken  too  literally,  we  find  it  rather 
\       hard  to  admit  that  the  essence  of  Gulliver  can  be  an  ex- 
pression of  this  doctrine.     The  tone  becomes  morose  and 
sombre,  and   even   ferocious;   but  it  has   been    disputed 
\  whether  in  any  case  it   can   be   regarded    simply  as   an 
utterance  of  misanthropy. 

Gulliver''s  Travels  belongs  to  a  literary  genus  full  of 
grotesque  and  anomalous  forms.  Its  form  is  derived  from 
some  of  the  imaginary  travels  of  which  Lucian's  True  His- 
tory— itself  a  burlesque  of  some  early  travellers'  tales — is 
the  first  example.   But  it  has  an  aflSnity  also  to  such  books 

'  Letter  to  Pope,  September  29, 1725. 
2  Letter  to  Sheridan,  September  11,  1*725. 


VIII.]  "  GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  173 

as  Bacon's  Atlantis  and  More*s  Utopia;  and,  again,  to 
later  philosophical  romances  like  Candide  and  Rasselas ; 
and  not  least,  perhaps,  to  the  ancient  fables,  such  as  Rey- 
nard the  Fox,  to  which  Swift  refers  in  the  Tale  of  a  Tub. 
It  may  be  compared,  again,  to  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  and 
the  whole  family  of  allegories.  The  fall-blown  allegory 
resembles  the  game  of  chess  said  to  have  been  played  by 
some  ancient  monarch,  in  which  the  pieces  were  replaced 
by  real  human  beings.  The  movements  of  the  actors  were 
not  determined  by  the  passions  proper  to  their  character, 
but  by  the  external  set  of  rules  imposed  upon  them  by  the 
game.  The  allegory  is  a  kind  of  picture-writing,  popular, 
like  picture-writing  at  a  certain  stage  of  development,  but 
wearisome  at  more  cultivated  periods,  when  we  prefer  to 
have  abstract  theories  conveyed  in  abstract  language,  and 
limit  the  artist  to  the  intrinsic  meaning  of  the  images  in 
which  he  deals.  The  whole  class  of  more  or  less  allegorical 
writing  has  thus  the  peculiarity  that  something  more  is 
meant  than  meets  the  ear.  Part  of  its  meaning  depends 
upon  a  tacit  convention  in  virtue  of  which  a  beautiful 
woman,  for  example,  is  not  simply  a  beautiful  woman,  but 
also  a  representative  of  Justice  and  Charity.  And  as  any 
such  convention  is  more  or  less  arbitrary,  we  are  often  in 
perplexity  to  interpret  the  author's  meaning,  and  also  to 
judge  of  the  propriety  of  the  symbols.  The  allegorical 
intention,  again,  may  be  more  or  less  present,  and  such  a 
book  as  Gulliver  must  be  regarded  as  lying  somewhere 
between  the  allegory  and  the  direct  revelation  of  truth, 
which  is  more  or  less  implied  in  the  work  of  every 
genuine  artist.  Its  true  purpose  has  thus  rather  puzzled 
critics.  Hazlitt^  urges,  for  example,  with  his  usual  brill- 
iancy, that  Swift's  purpose  was  to  "strip  empty  pride 
'  Lectures  on  the  English  Poets. 


174  SWIFT.  [chap. 

and  grandeur  of  the  imposing  air  which  external  circum- 
stances throw  around  them."  Swift,  accordingly,  varies 
the  scale,  so  as  to  show  the  insignificance  or  the  grossness 
of  our  self-love.  He  does  this  with  *'  mathematical  pre- 
cision ;"  he  tries  an  experiment  upon  human  nature ;  and 
with  the  result  that  "  nothing  solid,  nothing  valuable  is 
left  in  his  system  but  wisdom  and  virtue."  So  Gulliver's 
carrying  off  the  fleet  of  Blef uscu  is  "  a  mortifying  stroke,  )\ 
aimed  at  national  glory."  "After  that,  we  have  only 
to  consider  which  of  the  contending  parties  was  in  the 
right." 

Hazlitt  naturally  can  see  nothing  misanthropical  or  in- 
nocent in  such  a  conclusion.  The  mask  of  imposture  is 
torn  off  the  world,  and  only  imposture  can  complain.  This 
view,  which  has  no  doubt  its  truth,  suggests  some  obvious 
doubts.  We  are  not  invited,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  attend  y 
to  the  question  of  right  and  wrong,  as  between  Lilliput  and 
Blefuscu.  The  real  sentiment  in  Swift  is  that  a  war  be- 
tween these  miserable  pygmies  is,  in  itself,  contemptible;  \ 
and  therefore,  as  he  infers,  war  between  men  six  feet  high 
is  equally  contemptible.  The  truth  is  that,  although  Swift's 
solution  of  the  problem  may  be  called  mathematically  pre- 
cise, the  precision  does  not  extend  to  the  supposed  argu- 
ment. If  we  insist  upon  treating  the  question  as  one  of 
strict  logic,  the  only  conclusion  which  could  be  drawn  from 
Gulliver  is  the  very  safe  one  that  the  interest  of  the  human 
drama  does  not  depend  upon  the  size  of  the  actors.  A 
pygmy  or  a  giant  endowed  with  all  our  functions  and 
thoughts  would  be  exactly  as  interesting  as  a  being  of  the 
normal  stature.  It  does  not  require  a  journey  to  imaginary 
regions  to  teach  us  so  much.  And  if  we  say  that  Swift  has 
shown  us- in  his  pictures  the  real  essence  of  human  life,  we 
only  say  for  him  what  might  be  said  with  equal  force  of 


\ 


Till]  "GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  175 

Shakspeare  or  Balzac,  or  any  great  artist.  The  bare  proof 
that  the  essence  is  not  dependent  upon  the  external  con- 
dition of  size  is  superfluous  and  irrelevant;  and  we  must 
admit  that  Swift's  method  is  childish,  or  that  it  does  not 
adhere  to  this  strict  logical  canon. 

Hazlitt,  however,  comes  nearer  the  truth,  as  I  think, 
when  he  says  that  Swift  takes  a  view  of  human  nature 
such  as  might  be  taken  by  a  being  of  a  higher  sphere. 
That,  at  least,  is  his  purpose ;  only,  as  I  think,  he  pursues 
it  by  a  neglect  of  "  scientific  reasoning."  The  use  of  the 
machinery  is  simply  to  bring  us  into  a  congenial  frame  of 
mind.  He  strikes  the  key-note  of  contempt  by  his  imagery 
of  dwarfs  _and  giants.  \Ve  despise  the  petty  quarrels  of 
beings  six  inches  high ;  and  therefore  we  are  prepared  to 
despise  the  wars  carried  on  by  a  Marlborough  and  a  Eugene. 
We  transfer  the  contempt  based  upon  mere  size  to  the  mo- 
tives, which  are  the  same  in  big  men  and  little.  The  argu- 
ment, if  argument  there  be,  is  a  fallacy ;  but  it  is  equally 
efficacious  for  the  feelings.  You  see  the  pettiness  and 
cruelty  of  the  Lilliputians,  who  want  to  conquer  an  em- 
pire defended  by  toy-ships ;  and  you  are  tacitly  invited  to 
consider  whether  the  bigness  of  French  men-of-war  makes 
an  attack  upon  them  more  respectable.  The  force  of  the  . 
satire  depends  ultimately  upon  the  vigour  with  which  Swift\^ , 
has  described  the  real  passions  of  human  beings,  big  or  lit-  A 
tie.  He  really  means  to  express  a  bitter  contempt  for  states- 
n  men  and  warriors,  and  seduces  us  to  his  side,  for  the  mo- 
1 1  ment,  by  asking  us  to  look  at  a  diminutive  representation 
1  of  the  same  beings.  The  quarrels  which  depend  upon  the 
difference  between  the  high-boots  and  the  low-heeled  shoes, 
or  upon  breaking  eggs  at  the  big  or  little  end ;  the  party 
intrigues  which  are  settled  by  cutting  capers  on  the  tight- 
V,  rope,  are  meant,  of  course,  in  ridicule  of  political  and  re- 


X 


Hi 


J 

no  SWIFT.  [ciup. 

ligious  parties;  and  its  force  depends  upon  our  previous 
conviction  that  the  party-quarrels  between  our  fellows  are, 
in  fact,  equally  contemptible.  Swift's  satire  is  congenial 
to  the  mental  attitude  of  all  who  have  persuaded  them- 
selves that  men  are,  in  fact,  a  set  of  contemptible  fools  and 
knaves,  in  whose  quarrels  and  mutual  slaughterings  the  wise 

i       and  good  could  not  persuade  themselves  to  take  a  serious 

i\  interest.  He  "  proves  "  nothing,  mathematically  or  other- 
wise. If  you  do  not  share  his  sentiments  there  is  nothing 
in  the  mere  alteration  of  the  scale  to  convince  you  that 
they  are  right;  you  may  say,  with  Hazlitt,  that  heroism 
is  as  admirable  in  a  Lilliputian  as  in  a  Brobdingnagian, 
and  believe  that  war  calls  forth  patriotism,  and  often  ad- 
vances civilization.  What  Swift  has  really  done  is  to  pro- 
I  vide  for  the  man  who  despises  his  species  a  number  of 
i  exceedingly  effective  symbols  for  the  utterance  of  his 
contempt.  A  child  is  simply  amused  with  Bigendians 
and  Littleendians ;  a  philosopher  thinks  that  the  questions 
really  at  the  bottom  of  Church  quarrels  are  in  reality  of 
more  serious  import;  but  the  cynic  who  has  learnt  to 
disbelieve  in  the  nobility  or  wisdom  of  the  great  mass  of 
his  species  finds  a  most  convenient  metaphor  for  express- 
ing his  disbelief.  In  this  way  Gulliver's  Travels  contains 
a  whole  gallery  of  caricatures  thoroughly  congenial  to  the 
despisers  of  humanity. 

In  Brobdingnag  Swift  is  generally  said  to  be  looking,, 
lis  Scott  expresses  it,  through  the  other  end  of  the  tele- 

;^^^^«cope.    He  wishes  to  show  the  grossness  of  men's  passioji^sA 
as  before  he  has  shown  their~pn^ttmess.     Some  of  the  in- 
cidents are  devised  in  th  i*-«ense';  ^ifwe  may  notice  that 
in  Brobdingnag  he  recurs  to  the  Lilliput  view.     He  gives 

\     such  an  application  to  his  fable  as  may  be  convenient, 
without  bothering  himself  as  to  logical  consistency.     He 


viii]  " GULLIVEK'S  TRAVELS."  177 

points  out,  indeed,  the  disgusting  appearances  which  would 
be  presented  by  a  magnified  human  body ;  but  tlie  King 
of  Brobdingnag  looks  down  upon  Gulliver,  just  as  Gulliver 
looked  down  upon  the  Lilliputians.  The  monarch  sums 
up  his  view  emphatically  enough  by  saying,  after  listening 
to  Gulliver's  version  of  modern  history,  that  "  the  bulk  of 
your  natives  appear  to  me  to  be  the  most  pernicious  race 
of  little  odious  vermin  that  Nature  ever  suffered  to  crawl 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth."  In  Lilliput  and  Brobding- 
nag, Iiowever,  the  satire  scarcely  goes  beyond  pardonable 
limits.  The  details  are  often  simply  amusing,  such  as 
Gulliver's  fear,  when  he  gets  home,  of  trampling  upon  the 
pygmies  whom  he  sees  around  him.^^n^ even  the  severest 
satire  may  be  taken  without  offence  by  every  one  who 
believes  that  petty  motives,  folly  and  selfishness,  play  a 
large  enough  part  in  hunian  life  to  justify  some  indignant 
exaggerationsi^  It  is  in  the  later  parts  that  the  ferocity 
of  the  man  utters  itself  more  fully.  The  ridicule  of  the 
inventors  in  the  third  book  is,  as  Arbuthnot  said  at  once, 
the  least  successful  part  of  the  whole  ;  not  only  because 
Swift  was  getting  beyond  his  knowledge,  and  beyond  the 
range  of  his  strongest  antipathies,  but  also  because  there  is 
no  longer  the  ingenious  plausibility  of  the  earlier  books. 
The  voyage  to  the  Houyhnhnms,  which  forms  the  best 
part,  is  more  powerful,  but  more  painful  and  repulsive. 

A  word  must  here  be  said  of  the  most  unpleasant  part 
of  Swift's  character.  A  morbid  interest  in  the  physically 
disgusting  is  shown  in  several  of  his  writings.  Some  minor 
pieces,  which  ought  to  have  been  burnt,  simply  make  the 
gorge  rise.  Mrs.  Pilkington  tells  us,  and  we  can  for  once 
believe  her,  that  one  "poem"  actually  made  her  mother 
sick.  It  is  idle  to  excuse  this  on  the  ground  of  contem- 
porary   freedom    of    speech.     His    contemporaries    were 


/ 


M8  SWIFT.  [chap.. 

heartily  disgusted.  Indeed,  though  it  is  true  that  they 
revealed  eertain  propensities  more  openly,  I  see  no  reason 
to  think  that  such  propensities  were  really  stronger  in  them 
than  in  their  descendants.  The  objection  to  Swift  is  not 
that  he  spoke  plainly,  but  that  he  brooded  over  filth  un- 
necessarily. No  parallel  can  be  found  for  his  tendency 
even  in  writers,  for  example,  like  Smollett  and  Fielding, 
who  can  be  coarse  enough  when  they  please,  but  whose 
freedom  of  speech  reveals  none  of  Swift's  morbid  tendency. 
His  indulgence  in  revolting  images  is  to  some  extent  an 
indication  of  a  diseased  condition  of  his  mind,  perhaps  of 
actual  mental  decay.  Delany  says  that  it  grew  upon  him 
in  his  later  years,  and,  very  gratuitously,  attributes  it  to 
Pope's  influence.  The  peculiarity  is  the  more  remarkable, 
because  Swift  was  a  man  of  the  most  scrupulous  personal 
cleanliness.  He  was  always  enforcing  this  virtue  with 
special  emphasis.  He  was  rigorously  observant  of  decency 
in  ordinary  conversation.  Delany  once  saw  him  "  fall 
into  a  furious  resentment"  with  Stella  for  "a  very  small 
failure  of  delicacy."  So  far  from  being  habitually  coarse, 
he  pushed  fastidiousness  to  the  verge  of  prudery.  It  is 
one  of  the  superficial  paradoxes  of  Swift's  character  that 
this  very  shrinking  from  filth  became  perverted  into  an 
apparently  opposite  tendency.  In  truth,  his  intense  re- 
pugnance to  certain  images  led  him  to  use  them  as  the 
only  adequate  expression  of  his  savage  contempt.  Instances 
might  be  given  in  some  early  satires,  and  in  the  attack 
upon  Dissenters  in  the  Tale  of  a  Tub.  His  intensity  of 
loathing  leads  him  to  besmear  his  antagonists  with  filth. 
He  becomes  disgusting  in  the  effort  to  express  his  disgust. 
As  his  misanthropy  deej)ened  he  applied  the  same  method 
to  mankind  at  large.  ( He  tears  aside  the  veil  of  decency 
to  show  the  bestial  elements  of  human  nature;  and  his 


VIII.]  "GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  179^ 

ijliaractfiristk-irony  makes.  Mm  preserve  an  apparent  calm=. 
ness  during  the  revolting  exhibition.  His  state  of  mind 
is  strictly  analogous  to  that  of  some  religious  ascetics,  who 
stimulate  their  contempt  for  the  flesh  by  fixing  their  gaze 
upon  decaying  bodies.  They  seek  to  check  the  love  of 
beauty  by  showing  us  beauty  in  the  grave.  The  cynic  in 
Mr.  Tennyson's  poem  tells  us  that  every  face,  however 

full— 

"  Padded  round  with  flesh  and  blood, 
Is  but  moulded  on  a  skull." 

Swift — a  practised  self-tormentor,  though  not  in  the 
ordinary  ascetic  sense — mortifies  any  disposition  to  admire 
his  fellows  by  dwelling  upon  the  physical  necessities  which 
seem  to  lower  and  degrade  human  pride.  Beauty  is  but 
skin  deep ;  beneath  it  is  a  vile  carcase.  He  always  sees 
the  "flayed  woman"  of  the  Tale  of  a  Tub.  The  thought  j\ 
is  hideous,  hateful,  horrible,  and  therefore  it  fascinates 
him.  He  loves  to  dwell  upon  the  hateful,  because  it  jus- 
tifies his  hate.  He  nurses  his  misanthropy,  as  he  might 
tear  his  flesh  to  keep  his  mortality  before  his  eyes. 

The  Yahoo  is  the  embodiment  of  the  bestial  element 
in  man ;  and  Swift  in  his  wrath  takes  the  bestial  for 
the  predominating  element.  The  hideous,  filthy,  lustful  \ 
monster  yet  asserts  its  relationship  to  him  in  the  most  ^ 
humiliating  fashion :  and  he  traces  in  its  conduct  the 
resemblance  to  all  the  main  activities  of  the  human  being. 
Like  the  human  being,  it  fights  and  squabbles  for  the 
satisfaction  of  its  lust,  or  to  gain  certain  shiny  yellow 
stones;  it  befouls  the  weak  and  fawns  upon  the  strong 
with  loathsome  compliance ;  shows  a  strange  love  of  dirt, 
and  incurs  diseases  by  laziness  and  gluttony.  Gulliver 
gives  an  account  of  his  own  breed  of  Yahoos,  from 
which  it  seems  that  they  differ  from  the  subjects  of  the 


180  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Honyhnhnras  only  by  showing  the  same  propensities  on      . 
a  larger  scale ;  and  justifies  his  master's  remark,  that  all       ' 
their  institutions  are  owing  to  "gross  defects  in  reason, 
and  by  consequence  in  virtue."     The  Houyhnhnms,  mean-   y^ 
■while,  represent   Swift's   Utopia:   they  prosper   and  are 
/happy,  truthful,  and  virtuous,  and  therefore  able  to  dis- 
pense with  lawyers,  physicians,  ministers  and  all  the  other 
apparatus  of  an  effete  civilization.     It  is  in  this  doctrine, 
•   as  I  may  observe  in  passing,  that  Swift  falls  in  with  God- 
win and  the  revolutionists,  though  they  believed  in  human 
^'perfectibility,  while  they  traced  every  existing  evil  to  the 
^  impostures  and  corruptions  essential  to  all  systems  of  gov- 
,   crnment.     Swift's  view  of  human  nature  is  too  black  to 
\  admit  of  any  hopes  of  their  millennium. 

The  full  wrath  of  Swift  against  his  species  shows  itself 
in  this  ghastly  caricature.  It  is  lamentable  and  painful, 
though  even  here  we  recognize  the  morbid  perversion  of 
a  noble  wrath  against  oppression.  One  other  portrait  in 
Swift's  gallery  demands  a  moment's  notice.  No  poetic 
picture  in  Dante  or  Milton  can  exceed  the  strange  power 
of  his  prose  description  of  the  Struldbrugs — those  hideous 
immortals  who  are  damned  to  an  everlasting  life  of  driv- 
elling incompetence.  It  is  a  translation  of  the  affecting 
myth  of  Tithonus  into  the  repulsive  details  of  downright 
prose.  It  is  idle  to  seek  for  any  particular  moral  from 
these  hideous  phantoms  of  Swift's  dismal  Inferno.  They 
embody  the  terror  which  was  haunting  his  imagination  as 
old  age  was  drawing  upon  him.  The  sight,  he  says  him- 
self, should  reconcile  a  man  to  death.  The  mode  of  recon- 
ciliation is  terribly  characteristic.  Life  is  but  a  weary 
business  at  best ;  but,  at  least,  we  cannot  wish  to  drain  so 
repulsive  a  cup  to  the  dregs,  when  even  the  illusions  which 
cheered  us  at  moments  have  been  ruthlessly  destroyed. 


y 


VIII.]  "  GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  181 

Swift  was  but  too  clearly  prophesying  the  melanolioly  de- 
cay into  which  he  was  himself  to  sink. 

The  later  books  of  Gulliver  have  been  in  some  sense 
excised  from  the  popular  editions  of  the  Travels.  The 
Yahoos,  and  Houyhnhnms,  and  Struklbrugs  are,  indeed, 
known  by  name  almost  as  well  as  the  inhabitants  of  Lilli- 
put  and  Brobdingnag ;  but  this  part  of  the  book  is  cer- 
tainly not  reading  for  babes.  It  was,  probably,  written 
during  the  years  when  he  was  attacking  public  corruption, 
and  when  his  private  happiness  was  being  destroy cd-^when, 
therefore,  his  wrath  against  mankind  and  against  his  own 
fate  was  stimulated  to  the  highest  pitch.  Readers  who 
wish  to  indulge  in  a  harmless  play  of  fancy  will  do  well 
to  omit  the  last  two  voyages,  for  the  strain  of  misan- 
thropy which  breathes  in  them  is  simply  oppressive. 
They  are,  probably,  the  sources  from  which  the  popular 
impression  of  Swift's  character  is  often  derived.  It  is 
important,  therefore,  to  remember  that  they  were  wrung 
from  him  in  later  years,  after  a  life  tormented  by  constant 
disappointment  and  disease.  Most  people  hate  the  mis- 
anthropist, even  if  they  are  forced  to  admire  his  power. 
Yet  we  must  not  be  carried  too  far  by  the  w5rds.  Swift's 
misanthropy  was  not  all  ignoble.  We  generally  prefer 
flattery  even  to  sympathy.  We  like  the  man  who  is  blind 
to  our  faults  better  than  the  man  who  sees  them  and  yet 
pities  our  distresses.  We  have  the  same  kind  of  feeling 
for  the  race  as  we  have  in  our  own  case.  We  are  attract- 
ed by  the  kindly  optimist  who  assures  us  that  good  pre- 
dominates in  everything  and  everybody,  and  believes  that 
a  speedy  advent  of  the  millennium  must  reward  our  mani- 
fold excellence.  We  cannot  forgive  those  who  hold  men 
to  be  "mostly  fools,"  or,  as  Swift  would  assert,  mere 
brutes  in  disguise,  and  even  carry  out  that  disagreeable 


182  SWIFT.  [ciiAP.  vm. 

opinion  in  detail.  There  is  something  uncomfortable,  and 
therefore  repellent  of  sympathy,  in  the  mood  which  dwells 
upon  the  darker  side  of  society,  even  though  with  wrath- 
ful indignation  against  the  irremovable  evils.  Swift's 
hatred  of  oppression,  burning  and  genuine  as  it  was,  is  no 
apology  with  most  readers  for  his  perseverance  in  assert- 
ing its  existence.  "Speak  comfortable  things  to  us"  is 
the  cry  of  men  to  the  prophet  in  all  ages ;  and  he  who 
would  assault  abuses  must  count  upon  offending  many 
who  do  not  approve  them,  but  who  would,  therefore,  prefer 
not  to  believe  in  them.  Swift,  too,  mixed  an  amount  of 
egoism  with  his  virtuous  indignation  which  clearly  lowers 
his  moral  dignity.  He  really  hates  wrongs  to  his  race; 
but  his  sensitiveness  is  roused  when  they  are  injuries  to 
himself,  and  committed  by  his  enemies.  The  indomitable 
spirit  which  made  him  incapable  even  of  yielding  to  neces- 
sity, whicli  makes  him  beat  incessantly  against  the  bars 
which  it  was  hopeless  to  break,  and  therefore  waste  pow- 
ers which  might  have  done  good  service  by  aiming  at  the 
unattainable,  and  nursing  grudges  against  inexorable  ne- 
cessity, limits  our  sympathy  with  his  better  nature.  Yet 
some  of  us  may  take  a  different  view,  and  rather  pity 
than  condemn  the  wounded  spirit  so  tortured  and  pervert- 
ed, in  consideration  of  the  real  philanthropy  which  under- 
lies the  misanthropy,  and  the  righteous  hatred  of  brutality 
and  oppression  which  is  but  the  seamy  side  of  a  generous 
sympathy.  At  least,  we  should  be  rather  awed  than  re- 
pelled by  this  spectacle  of  a  nature  of  magnificent  power 
struck  down,  bruised  and  crushed  under  fortune,  and  yet 
fronting  all  antagonists  with  increasing  pride,  and  com- 
forting itself  with  scorn  even  when  it  can  no  longer  injure 
its  adversaries. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DECLINE. 

Swift  survived  his  final  settlement  in  Ireland  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  though  during  the  last  five  or  six  it  was 
but  the  outside  shell  of  him  that  lived.  During  every 
day  in  all  those  years  Swift  must  have  eaten  and  drunk, 
and  somehow  or  other  got  through  the  twenty-four  hours. 
The  war  against  Wood's  halfpence  employed  at  most  a 
few  months  in  1724,  and  all  his  other  political  writings 
would  scarcely  fill  a  volume  of  this  size.  A  modern  jour- 
nalist who  could  prove  that  he  had  written  as  little  in  six 
months  would  deserve  a  testimonial.  GuUiver^s  Travels 
appeared  in  1727,  and  ten  years  were  to  pass  before  his 
intellect  became  hopelessly  clouded.  How  was  the  re- 
mainder of  his  time  filled  ? 

The  death  of  Stella  marks  a  critical  point.  Swift  told 
Gay  in  1723  that  it  had  taken  three  years  to  reconcile 
him  to  the  country  to  which  he  was  condemned  forever. 
He  camfe  back  "  with  an  ill  head  and  an  aching  heart."* 
He  was  separated  from  the  friends  he  had  loved,  and  too 
old  to  make  new  friends.  A  man,  as  he  says  elsewhere,* 
who  had  been  bred  in  a  coal-pit  might  pass  his  time  in  it 
well  enough;  but  if  sent  back  to  it  after  a  few  months  in 
upper  air  he  would  find  content  less  easy.     Swift,  in  fact, 

^  To  Bolingbroke,  May,  1719. 
«  To  Pope  and  Gay,  October  15, 1726. 
9 


184  SWIFT.  [chap. 

never  became  resigned  to  the  "  coal-pit,"  or,  to  use  another 
of  his  phrases,  the  "  wretched,  dirty  dog-hole  and  prison," 
of  which  he  could  only  say  that  it  was  a  "  place  good 
enough  to  die  in."  Yet  he  became  so  far  acclimatized  as 
to  shape  a  tolerable  existence  out  of  the  fragments  left  to 
him.  Intelligent  and  cultivated  men  in  Dublin,  especially 
amongst  the  clergy  and  the  Fellows  of  Trinity  College, 
gathered  round  their  famous  countryman.  Swift  formed 
a  little  court ;  he  rubbed  up  his  classics  to  the  academical 
standard,  read  a  good  deal  of  history,  and  even  amused 
himself  with  mathematics.  He  received  on  Sundays  at 
the  deanery,  though  his  entertainments  seem  to  have  been 
rather  too  economical  for  the  taste  of  his  guests.  "The 
ladies,"  Stella  and  Mrs.  Dingley,  were  recognized  as  more 
or  less  domesticated  with  him.  Stella  helped  to  receive 
his  guests,  though  not  ostensibly  as  mistress  of  the  house- 
hold ;  and,  if  we  may  accept  Swift's  estimate  of  her  social 
talents,  must  have  been  a  very  charming  hostess.  If  some 
of  Swift's  guests  were  ill  at  ease  in  presence  of  the  imperi- 
ous and  moody  exile,  we  may  believe  that  during  Stella's 
life  there  was  more  than  a  mere  semblance  of  agreeable 
society  at  the  deanery.  Her  death,  as  Delany  tells  us,^  led 
to  a  painful  change.  Swift's  temper  became  sour  and  un- 
governable; his  avarice  grew  into  a  monomania;  at  times 
he  grudged  even  a  single  bottle  of  wine  to  his  friends. 
The  giddiness  and  deafness  which  had  tormented  him  by 
fits  now  became  a  part  of  his  life.  Reading  came  to  be 
impossible,  because  (as  Delany  thinks)  his  obstinate  refusal 
to  wear  spectacles  had  injured  his  sight.  He  still  strug- 
gled hard  against  disease ;  he  rode  energetically,  though 
two  servants  had  to  accompany  him,  in  case  of  accidents 
from  giddiness  ;  he  took  regular  "  constitutionals  "  up  and 
'  Delany,  p.  144. 


IX.]  DECLINE.  185 

down  stairs  when  he  could  not  go  out.  His  friends  thought 
that  he  injured  himself  by  over-exercise,  and  the  battle 
was  necessarily  a  losing  one.  Gradually  the  gloom  deep- 
ened ;  friends  dropped  off  by  death,  and  were  alienated  by 
his  moody  temper ;  he  was  surrounded,  as  they  thought, 
by  designing  sycophants.  His  cousin,  Mrs.  Whiteway,  who 
took  care  of  him  in  his  last  years,  seems  to  have  been  both 
kindly  and  sensible ;  but  he  became  unconscious  of  kind- 
ness, and  in  1741  had  to  be  put  under  restraint.  We  may 
briefly  fill  up  some  details  in  the  picture. 

Swift  at  Dublin  recalls  Napoleon  at  Elba.  The  duties 
of  a  deanery  are  not  supposed,  I  believe,  to  give  absorbing 
employment  for  all  the  faculties  of  the  incumbent ;  but  an 
empire,  however  small,  may  be  governed  ;  and  Swift  at  an 
early  period  set  about  establishing  his  supremacy  within 
his  small  domains.  He  maintained  his  prerogatives  against 
the  archbishop,  and  subdued  his  chapter.  His  inferiors 
submitted,  and  could  not  fail  to  recognize  his  zeal  for  the 
honour  of  the  body.  But  his  superiors  found  him  less 
amenable.  He  encountered  episcopal  authority  with  his 
old  haughtiness.  He  bade  an  encroaching  bishop  remem- 
ber that  he  was  speaking  "  to  a  clergyman,  and  not  to  a 
footman."*  He  fell  upon  an  old  friend,  Sterne,  the  Bish- 
op of  Clogher,  for  granting  a  lease  to  some  "  old  fanatic 
knight."  He  takes  the  opportunity  of  reviling  the  bish- 
ops for  favouring  "  two  abominable  bills  for  beggaring  and 
enslaving  the  clergy  (which  took  their  birth  from  hell)," 
and  says  that  he  had  thereupon  resolved  to  have  "  no  more 
commerce  with  persons  of  such  prodigious  grandeur,  who, 
I  feared,  in  a  little  time,  would  expect  me  to  kiss  their 
slipper."'     He  would  not  even  look  into  a  coach,  lest  he 

^  Bishop  of  Meath,May  22, 1719. 
2  To  Bishop  of  Ologher,  July,  1733. 


186  SWIFT.  [chap. 

should  see  such  a  thing  as  a  bishop — a  sight  that  would 
strike  him  with  terror.  In  a  bitter  satire  he  describes  Sa- 
tan as  the  bishop  to  whom  the  rest  of  the  Irish  Bench  are 
suffragans.  His  theory  was  that  the  English  Government 
always  appointed  admirable  divines,  but  that  unluckily  all 
the  new  bishops  were  murdered  on  Hounslow  Heath  by 
highwaymen,  who  took  their  robes  and  patents,  and  so 
usurped  the  Irish  sees.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Swift's 
episcopal  acquaintance  was  limited. 

In  his  deanery  Swift  discharged  his  duties  with  despotic 
benevolence.  He  performed  the  services,  carefully  criti- 
cised young  preachers,  got.  his  musical  friends  to  help  him 
in  regulating  his  choir,  looked  carefully  after  the  cathedral 
repairs,  and  improved  the  revenues  at  the  cost  of  his  own 
interests.  His  pugnacity  broke  out  repeatedly  even  in 
such  apparently  safe  directions.  He  erected  a  monument 
to  the  Duke  of  Schomberg  after  an  attempt  to  make  the 
duke's  descendants  pay  for  it  themselves.  He  said  that  if 
they  tried  to  avoid  the  duty  by  reclaiming  the  body,  he 
would  take  up  the  bones,  and  put  the  skeleton  "  in  his 
register  office,  to  be  a  memorial  of  their  baseness  to  all 
posterity."^  He  finally  relieved  his  feelings  by  an  epitaph, 
which  is  a  bitter  taunt  against  the  duke's  relations. 

Happily,  he  gave  less  equivocal  proofs  of  the  energy 
which  he  could  put  into  his  duties.  His  charity  was  un- 
surpassed both  for  amount  and  judicious  distribution. 
Delany  declares  that  in  spite  of  his  avarice  he  would  give 
five  pounds  more  easily  than  richer  men  would  give  as 
many  shillings.  "  I  never,"  says  this  good  authority,  "  saw 
poor  so  carefully  and  conscientiously  attended  to  in  my 
life  as  those  of  his  cathedral."  He  introduced  and  carried 
out  within  his  own  domains  a  plan  for  distinguishing  the 
'  To  Carteret,  May  10, 1728. 


ix.j  DECLINE.  187 

deserving  poor  by  badges — in  anticipation  of  modern 
schemes  for  "organization  of  charity."  With  tlie  first 
five  hundred  pounds  which  he  possessed  he  formed  a  fund 
for  granting  loans  to  industrious  tradesmen  and  citizens, 
to  be  repaid  by  weekly  instalments.  It  was  said  that  by 
this  scheme  he  had  been  the  means  of  putting  more  than 
two  hundred  families  in  a  comfortable  way  of  living.'  He 
had,  says  Delany,  a  whole  "  seraglio "  of  distressed  old 
women  in  Dublin ;  there  was  scarcely  a  lane  in  the  whole 
city  where  he  had  not  such  a  "mistress."  He  saluted 
them  kindly,  inquired  into  their  affairs,  bought  trifles  from 
them,  and  gave  them  such  titles  as  Pullagowna,  Stumpa- 
nympha,  and  so  forth.  The  phrase  "seraglio"  may  re- 
mind us  of  Johnson's  establishment,  who  has  shown  his 
prejudice  against  Swift  in  nothing  more  than  in  misjudg- 
ing a  charity  akin  to  his  own,  though  apparently  directed 
with  more  discretion.  The  "  rabble,"  it  is  clear,  might  be 
grateful  for  other  than  political  services.  To  personal  de- 
pendents he  was  equally  liberal.  He  supported  his  wid- 
owed sister,  who  had  married  a  scapegrace  in  opposition 
to  his  wishes.  He  allowed  an  annuity  of  521.  a  year  to 
Stella's  companion,  Mrs.  Dingley,  and  made  her  suppose 
that  the  money  was  not  a  gift,  but  the  produce  of  a  fund 
for  which  he  was  trustee.  He  showed  the  same  liberality 
to  Mrs.  Ridgway,  daughter  of  his  old  housekeeper,  Mrs. 
Brent,  paying  her  an  annuity  of  20^.,  and  giving  her  a 
bond  to  secure  the  payment  in  case  of  accidents.  Consid- 
ering the  narrowness  of  Swift's  income,  and  that  he  seems 
also  to  have  had  considerable  trouble  about  obtaining  his 
rents  and  securing  his  invested  savings,  we  may  say  that 
his  so-called  "  avarice  "  was  not  inconsistent  with  unusual 

1  Substance  of  a  speech  to  the  Mayor  of  Dublin.    Franklin  left 
a  sum  of  money  to  be  employed  in  a  similar  way. 


188  SWIFT.  [chap. 

munificence.  He  pared  his  personal  expenditure  to  the 
quick,  not  that  he  might  be  rich,  but  that  he  might  be 
liberal. 

Though  for  one  reason  or  other  Swift  was  at  open  war 
with  a  good  many  of  the  higher  classes,  his  court  was 
not  without  distinguished  favourites.  The  most  conspic- 
uous amongst  them  were  Delany  and  Sheridan.  Delany 
(1685-1V68),  when  Swift  first  knew  him,  was  a  Fellow  of 
Trinity  College.  He  was  a  scholar,  and  a  man  of  much 
good  feeling  and  intelligence,  and  eminently  agreeable  in 
society;  his  theological  treatises  seem  to  have  been  fan- 
ciful, but  he  could  write  pleasant  verses,  and  had  great 
reputation  as  a  college  tutor.  He  married  two  rich  wives, 
and  Swift  testifies  that  his  good  qualities  were  not  the 
worse  for  his  wealth,  nor  his  purse  generally  fuller.  He 
was  so  much  given  to  hospitality  as  to  be  always  rather 
in  difficulties.  He  was  a  man  of  too  much  amiability  and 
social  suavity  not  to  be  a  little  shocked  at  some  of  Swift's 
savage  outbursts,  and  scandalized  by  his  occasional  impro- 
prieties. ^  Yet  he  appreciated  the  nobler  qualities  of  the 
staunch,  if  rather  alarming,  friend.  It  is  curious  to 
remember  that  his  second  wife,  who  was  one  of  Swift's 
later  correspondents,  survived  to  be  the  venerated  friend 
of  Fanny  Burney  (1V52-1840),  and  that  many  living 
people  may  thus  remember  one  who  was  familiar  with 
the  latest  of  Swift's  female  favourites.  Swift's  closest 
friend  and  crony,  however,  was  the  elder  Sheridan,  the 
ancestor  of  a  race  fertile  in  genius,  though  unluckily  his 
son,  Swift's  biographer,  seems  to  have  transmitted  without 
possessing  any  share  of  it.  Thomas  Sheridan,  the  elder, 
was  the  typical  Irishman — kindly,  witty,  blundering,  full 
of  talents  and  imprudences,  careless  of  dignit}^,  and  a  child 
in  the  ways  of  the  world.     He  was  a  prosperous  school- 


IX.]  DECLINE.  189 

master  in  Dublin  when  Swift  first  made  his  acquaintance 
(about  1718),  so  prosperous  as  to  decline  a  less  precarious 
post,  of  which  Swift  got  him  the  offer. 

After  the  war  of  Wood's  halfpence  Swift  became 
friendly  with  Carteret,  whom  he  respected  as  a  man  of 
genuine  ability,  and  who  had  besides  the  virtue  of  being 
thoroughly  distrusted  by  Walpole.  When  Carteret  was 
asked  how  he  had  succeeded  in  Ireland  he  replied  that 
he  had  pleased  Dr.  Swift.  Swift  took  advantage  of  the 
mutual  good-will  to  recommend  several  promising  clergy- 
men to  Carteret's  notice.  He  was  specially  warm  in  be- 
half of  Sheridan,  who  received  the  first  vacant  living  and 
a  chaplaincy.  Sheridan  characteristically  spoilt  his  own 
chances  by  preaching  a  sermon,  upon  the  day  of  the 
accession  of  the  Hanoverian  family,  from  the  text,  "Suf- 
ficient unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  The  sermon  was 
not  political,  and  the  selection  of  the  text  a  pure  accident; 
but  Sheridan  was  accused  of  Jacobitism,  and  lost  his  chap- 
laincy in  consequence.  Though  generously  compensated 
by  the  friend  in  whose  pulpit  he  had  committed  this 
"  Sheridanism,"  he  got  into  difficulties.  His  school  fell 
off;  he  exchanged  his  preferments  for  others  less  prefer- 
able; he  failed  in  a  school  at  Cavan,  and  ultimately  the 
poor  man  came  back  to  die  at  Dublin,  in  1738,  in  dis- 
tressed circumstances.  Swift's  relations  with  him  were 
thoroughly  characteristic.  He  defended  his  cause  ener- 
getically ;  gave  him  most  admirably  good  advice  in  rather 
dictatorial  terms ;  admitted  him  to  the  closest  familiarity, 
and  sometimes  lost  his  temper  when  Sheridan  took  a  lib- 
erty at  the  wrong  moment,  or  resented  the  liberties  taken 
by  himself.  A  queer  character  of  the  "  Second  Solomon," 
written,  it  seems,  in  1729,  shows  the  severity  with  which 
Swift  could  sometimes  judge  his  shiftless  and  impulsive 


190  SWIFT.  [CHAP. 

friend,  and  the  irritability  with  which  he  could  resent 
occasional  assertions  of  independence.  "He  is  extremely 
proud  and  captious,"  says  Swift,  and  "  apt  to  resent  as  an 
affront  or  indignity  what  was  never  intended  for  either," 
but  what,  we  must  add,  had  a  strong  likeness  to  both. 
One  cause  of  poor  Sheridan's  troubles  was  doubtless  that 
assigned  by  Swift.  Mrs.  Sheridan,  says  this  frank  critic, 
is  "  the  most  disagreeable  beast  in  Europe,"  a  "  most  filthy 
slut,  lazy  and  slothful,  luxurious,  ill-natured,  envious,  sus- 
picious," and  yet  managing  to  govern  Sheridan.  This  es- 
timate was  apparently  shared  by  her  husband,  who  makes 
various  references  to  her  detestation  of  Swiftj.  In  spite 
of  all  jars,  Swift  was  not  only  intimate  with  Sheridan  and 
energetic  in  helping  him,  but  to  all  appearance  really  loved 
him.  Swift  came  to  Sheridan's  house  when  the  workmen 
were  moving  the  furniture,  preparatory  to  his  departure 
for  Cavan.  Swift  burst  into  tears,  and  hid  himself  in  a 
dark  closet  before  he  could  regain  his  self-possession.  He 
paid  a  visit  to  his  old  friend  afterwards,  but  was  now  in 
that  painful  and  morbid  state  in  which  violent  outbreaks 
of  passion  made  him  frequently  intolerable.  Poor  Sheri- 
dan rashly  ventured  to  fulfil  an  old  engagement  that  he 
would  tell  Swift  frankly  of  a  growing  infirmity,  and  said 
something  about  avarice.  "  Doctor,"  replied  Swift,  signif- 
icantly, "did  you  never  read  Gil  BlasV  When  Sheridan 
soon  afterwards  sold  his  school  to  return  to  Dublin,  Swift 
received  his  old  friend  so  inhospitably  that  Sheridan  left 
him,  never  again  to  enter  the  house.  Swift,  indeed,  had 
ceased  to  be  Swift,  and  Sheridan  died  soon  afterwards. 

Swift  often  sought  relief  from  the  dreariness  of  the 
deanery  by  retiring  to,  or  rather  by  taking  possession  of, 
his  friends'  country  houses.  In  1725  he  stayed  for  some 
months,  together  with  "the  ladies,"  at  Quilca,  a  small 


IX.]  DECLINE.  191 

cotintry  house  of  Sheridan's,  and  compiled  an  account  of 
the  deficiencies  of  the  establishment — meant  to  be  con- 
tinued weekly.  Broken  tables,  doors  without  locks,  a 
chimney  stuffed  with  the  Dean's  great-coat,  a  solitary  pair 
of  tongs  forced  to  attend  all  the  fireplaces  and  also  to  take 
the  meat  from  the  pot,  holes  in  the  floor,  spikes  protrud- 
ing from  the  bedsteads,  are  some  of  the  items ;  whilst  the 
servants  are  all  thieves,  and  act  upon  the  proverb,  "The 
worse  their  sty,  the  longer  they  lie."  Swift  amused  him- 
self here  and  elsewhere  by  indulging  his  taste  in  landscape 
gardening,  without  the  consent  and  often  to  the  annoy- 
ance of  the  proprietor.  In  1728 — the  year  of  Stella's 
death — he  passed  eight  months  at  Sir  Arthur  Acheson's, 
near  Market  Hill.  He  was  sickly,  languid,  and  anxious  to 
escape  from  Dublin,  where  he  had  no  company  but  that  of 
his  "  old  Presbyterian  housekeeper,  Mrs.  Brent."  He  had, 
however,  energy  enough  to  take  the  household  in  hand 
after  his  usual  fashion.  He  superintended  Lady  Acheson's 
studies,  made  her  read  to  him,  gave  her  plenty  of  good 
advice ;  bullied  the  butler ;  looked  after  the  dairy  and  the 
garden,  and  annoyed  Sir  Arthur  by  summarily  cutting 
down  an  old  thorn-tree.  He  liked  the  place  so  much  that 
he  thought  of  building  a  house  there,  which  was  to  be 
called  Drapier's  Hall,  but  abandoned  the  project  for 
reasons  which,  after  his  fashion,  he  expressed  with  great 
frankness  in  a  poem.  Probably  the  chief  reason  was  the 
very  obvious  one  which  strikes  all  people  who  are  tempted 
to  build;  but  that  upon  which  he  chiefly  dwells  is  Sir 
Arthur's  defects  as  an  entertainer.  The  knight  used,  it 
seems,  to  lose  himself  in  metaphysical  moonings  when  he 
should  have  been  talking  to  Swift  and  attending  to  his 
gardens  and  farms.  Swift  entered  a  house  less  as  a  guest 
than  a  conqueror.  His  dominion,  it  is  clear,  must  have 
9* 


192  SWIFT.  [chap. 

become  burdensome  in  his  later  years,  when  his  temper 
was  becoming  savage  and  his  fancies  more  imperious. 

Such  a  man  was  the  natural  prey  of  sycophants,  who 
would  bear  his  humours  for  interested  motives.  Amongst 
Swift's  numerous  clients  some  doubtless  belonged  to  this 
class.  The  old  need  of  patronizing  and  protecting  still 
displays  itself;  and  there  is  something  very  touching  in 
the  zeal  for  his  friends  which  survived  breaking  health  and 
mental  decay.  His  correspondence  is  full  of  eager  advo- 
cacy. Poor  Miss  Kelly,  neglected  by  an  unnatural  parent, 
comes  to  Swift  as  her  natural  adviser.  He  intercedes  on 
behalf  of  th6  prodigal  son  of  a  Mr.  FitzHerbert  in  a  letter 
which  is  a  model  of  judicious  and  delicate  advocacy.  His 
old  friend,  Barber,  had  prospered  in  business ;  ho  was  Lord 
Mayor  of  London  in  1733,  and  looked  upon  Swift  as  the 
founder  of  his  fortunes.  To  him,  "my  dear  good  old 
friend  in  the  best  and  worst  times,"  Swift  writes  a  series 
of  letters,  full  of  pathetic  utterances  of  his  regrets  for  old 
friends  amidst  increasing  infirmities,  and  full  also  of  ap- 
peals on  behalf  of  others.  He  induced  Barber  to  give  a 
chaplaincy  to  Pilkington,  a  young  clergyman  of  whose 
talent  and  modesty  Swift  was  thoroughly  convinced.  Mrs. 
Pilkington  was  a  small  poetess,  and  the  pair  had  crept 
into  some  intimacy  at  the  deanery.  Unluckily,  Swift  had 
reasons  to  repent  his  patronage.  The  pair  were  equally 
worthless.  The  husband  tried  to  get  a  divorce,  and  the 
wife  sank  into  misery.  One  of  her  last  experiments  was 
to  publish  by  subscription  certain  *'  Memoirs,"  which  con- 
tain some  interesting  but  untrustworthy  anecdotes  of 
Swift's  later  years.^  He  had  rather  better  luck  with  Mrs. 
Barber,  wife  of  a  Dublin  woollen-draper,  who,  as  Swift  says, 

^  See  also  the  curious  letters  from  Mrs.  Pilkington  in  Richardson's 
correspondence. 


IX.]  DECLINE.  193 

was  "  poetically  given,  and,  for  a  woman,  had  a  sort  of 
genius  that  way."  He  pressed  her  claims  not  only  upon 
her  namesake,  the  Mayor,  but  upon  Lord  Carteret,  Lady 
Betty  Germaine,  and  Gay  and  his  Duchess.  A  forged 
letter  to  Queen  Caroline  in  Swift's  name  on  behalf  of  this 
poetess  naturally  raised  some  suspicions.  Swift,  however, 
must  have  been  convinced  of  her  innocence.  He  con- 
tinued his  interest  in  her  for  years,  during  which  we  are 
glad  to  find  that  she  gave  up  poetry  for  selling  Irish  linens 
and  letting  lodgings  at  Bath ;  and  one  of  Swift's  last  acts 
before  his  decay  was  to  present  her,  at  her  own  request, 
with  the  copyright  of  his  Polite  Conversations.  Every- 
body, she  said,  would  subscribe  for  a  work  of  Swift's,  and 
it  would  put  her  in  easy  circumstances.  Mrs.  Barber 
clearly  had  no  delicacy  in  turning  Swift's  liberality  to 
account ;  but  she  was  a  respectable  and  sensible  woman, 
and  managed  to  bring  up  two  sons  to  professions.  Liber- 
ality of  this  kind  came  naturally  to  Swift.  He  provided 
for  a  broken-down  old  officer,  Captain  Creichton,  by  com- 
piling his  memoirs  for  him,  to  be  published  by  subscrip- 
tion. "I  never,"  he  says  in  1735,  "got  a  farthing  by 
anything  I  wrote — except  once  by  Pope's  prudent  man- 
agement." This  probably  refers  to  Gulliver^  for  which  he 
seems  to  have  received  200/.  He  apparently  gave  his 
share  in  the  profits  of  the  Miscellanies  to  the  widow  of  a 
Dublin  printer. 

A  few  words  may  now  be  said  about  these  last  writ- 
ings. In  reading  some  of  them  we  must  remember  his 
later  mode  of  life.  He  generally  dined  alone,  or  with  old 
Mrs.  Brent,  then  sat  alone  in  his  closet  till  he  went  to  bed 
at  eleven.  The  best  company  in  Dublin,  he  said,  was 
barely  tolerable,  and  those  who  had  been  tolerable  were 
now  insupportable.     He  could  no  longer  read  by  candle- 


194  SWIFT.  [chap. 

light,  and  his  only  resource  was  to  write  rubbish,  most  of 
which  he  burnt.  The  merest  trifles  that  he  ever  wrote, 
he  says  in  1731,  "are  serious  philosophical  lucubrations 
in  comparison  to  what  I  now  busy  myself  about."  This, 
however,  was  but  the  development  of  a  lifelong  practice. 
His  favourite  maxim,  Vive  la  bagatelle,  is  often  quoted  by 
Pope  and  Bolingbroke.  As  he  had  punned  in  his  youth 
with  Lord  Berkeley,  so  he  amused  himself  in  later  years 
by  a  constant  interchange  of  trifles  with  his  friends,  and 
above  all  with  Sheridan.  Many  of  these  trifles  have  been 
preserved;  they  range  from  really  good  specimens  of 
Swift's  rather  sardonic  humour  down  to  bad  riddles  and 
a  peculiar  kilid  of  playing  upon  words.  A  brief  specimen 
of  one  variety  will  be  amply  sufficient.  Sheridan  writes 
to  Swift :  "  Times  a  re  veri  de  ad  nota  do  it  §ras  hi  lingat 
almi  e  state.''''  The  words  separately  are  Latin,  and  are  to 
be  read  into  the  English — "  Times  are  very  dead ;  not  a 
doit  or  a  shilling  at  all  my  estate."  Swift  writes  to 
Sheridan  in  English,  which  reads  into  Latin,  "  Am  I  say 
vain  a  rabble  is,"  means,  Amice  venerahilis — and  so  forth. 
Whole  manuscript  books  are  still  in  existence  filled  with 
jargon  of  this  kind.  Charles  Fox  declared  that  Swift 
must  be  a  good-natured  man  to  have  had  such  a  love  of 
nonsense.  We  may  admit  some  of  it  to  be  a  proof  of 
good-humour  in  the  same  sense  as  a  love  of  the  back- 
gammon in  which  he  sometimes  indulged.  It  shows,  that 
is,  a  willingness  to  kill  time  in  company.  But  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  impression  becomes  different  when  we 
think  of  Swift  in  his  solitude  wasting  the  most  vigorous 
intellect  in  the  country  upon  ingenuities  beneath  that  of 
the  composer  of  double  acrostics.  Delany  declares  that 
the  habit  helped  to  weaken  his  intellect.  Kather  it 
showed  that  his  intellect  was  preying  upon  itself.     Once 


IX.]  DECLINE.  195 

more  we  have  to  think  of  the  "  conjured  spirit "  and  the 
ropes  of  sand.  Nothing  can  well  be  more  lamentable. 
Books  full  of  this  stuff  impress  us  like  products  of  the 
painful  ingenuity  by  which  some  prisoner  for  life  has 
tried  to  relieve  himself  of  the  intolerable  burden  of  soli- 
tary confinement.  Swift  seems  to  betray  the  secret  when 
he  tells  Bolingbroke  that  at  his  age  "  I  often  thought  of 
death ;  but  now  it  is  never  out  of  my  mind."  He  repeats 
this  more  than  once.  He  does  not  fear  death,  he  says; 
indeed,  he  longed  for  it.  His  regular  farewell  to  a  friend 
was,  "  Good-night ;  I  hope  I  shall  never  see  you  again." 
He  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  "  lamenting  "  his  birth- 
day, though,  in  earlier  days,  Stella  and  other  friends  had 
celebrated  the  anniversary.  Now  it  became  a  day  of  un- 
mixed gloom,  and  the  chaptgr  in  which  Job  curses  the 
hour  of  his  birth  lay  open  all  day  on  his  table.  "And 
yet,"  he  says,  "  I  love  la  bagatelle  better  than  ever." 
Rather  we  should  say,  "  and  therefore,"  for  in  truth  the 
only  excuse  for  such  trifling  was  the  impossibility  of  find- 
ing any  other  escape  from  settled  gloom.  Friends,  indeed, 
seem  to  have  adopted  at  times  the  theory  that  a  humour- 
ist must  always  be  on  the  broad  grin.  They  called  him 
the  "  laughter-loving"  Dean,  and  thought  Gulliver  a  "  mer- 
ry book."  A  strange  effect  is  produced  when,  between 
two  of  the  letters  in  which  Swift  utters  the  bitterest  ag- 
onies of  his  soul  during  Stella's  illness,  we  have  a  letter 
from  Bolingbroke  to  the  "  three  Yahoos  of  Twickenham  " 
(Pope,  Gay,  and  Swift),  referring  to  Swift's  "  divine  sci- 
ence, la  bagatelle^''  and  ending  with  the  benediction, 
"  Mirth  be  with  you !"  From  such  mirth  we  can  only 
say,  may  Heaven  protect  us,  for  it  w^ald  remind  us  of 
nothing  but  the  mirth  of  Redgauntlet's  companions  when 
they  sat  dead  (and  damned)  at  t&eir  ghasiiy  Tevciry,  and 


196  SWIFT.  [chap. 

their  laughter  passed  into  such  wild  sounds  as  made  the 
daring  piper's  "  very  nails  turn  blue." 

It  is  not,  however,  to  be  inferred  that  all  Swift's  recrea- 
tions were  so  dreary  as  this  Anglo-Latin,  or  that  his  face- 
tiousness  always  covered  an  aching  heart.  There  is  real 
humour,  and  not  all  of  bitter  flavour,  in  some  of  the  trifles 
which  passed  between  Swift  and  his  friends.  The  most 
famous  is  the  poem  called  The  Grand  Question  Debated, 
the  question  being  whether  an  old  building  called  Hamil- 
ton's Bawn,  belonging  to  Sir  A.  Acheson,  should  be  turned 
into  a  malthouse  or  a  barrack.  Swift  takes  the  opportu- 
nity of  caricaturing  the  special  object  of  his  aversion,  the 
blustering  and  illiterate  soldier,  though  he  indignantly 
denies  that  he  had  said  anything  disagreeable  to  his  hos- 
pitable entertainer.  Lady  Acheson  encouraged  him  in 
writing  such  "lampoons."  Her  taste  cannot  have  been 
very  delicate,^  and  she,  perhaps,  did  not  perceive  how  a 
rudeness  which  affects  to  be  only  playful  may  be  really 
offensive.  If  the  poem  shows  that  Swift  took  liberties 
with  his  friends,  it  also  shows  that  he  still  possessed  the 
strange  power  of  reproducing  the  strain  of  thought  of  a 
vulgar  mind  which  he  exhibited  in  Mr.  Harris's  petition. 
Two  other  works  which  appeared  in  these  last  years  are 
more  remarkable  proofs  of  the  same  power.  The  Com- 
plete Collection  of  Genteel  and  Ingenious  Conversation  and 
the  Directions  to  Servants  are  most  singular  perform- 
ances, and  curiously  iUustrative  of  Swift's  habits  of 
thought  and  composition.  He  seems  to  have  begun  them 
during  some  of  his  early  visits  to  England.  He  kept 
them  by  him  and  amused  himself  by  working  upon  them, 
though  they  were  never  quite  finished.  The  Polite  Con- 
versation was  given,  as  we  have  seen,  to  Mrs.  Barber  in  his 
*  Or  she  would  hardly  have  written  the  Panegyric. 


IX.  J  DECLINE.  197 

later  years,  and  the  Directions  to  Servants  came  into  the 
printer's  hands  when  he  was  already  imbecile.  They 
show  how  closely  Swift's  sarcastic  attention  was  fixed 
through  life  upon  the  ways  of  his  inferiors.  They  are  a 
mass  of  materials  for  a  natural  history  of  social  absurdi- 
ties, such  as  Mr.  Darwin  was  in  the  habit  of  bestowing 
upon  the  manners  and  customs  of  worms.  The  difference 
is  that  Darwin  had  none  but  kindly  feelings  for  worms, 
whereas  Swift's  inspection  of  social  vermin  is  always 
edged  with  contempt.  The  Conversations  are  a  marvel- 
lous collection  of  the  set  of  cant  phrases  which  at  best 
have  supplied  the  absence  of  thought  in  society.  Inci- 
dentally there  are  some  curious  illustrations  of  the  cus- 
toms of  the  day ;  though  one  cannot  suppose  that  any 
human  beings  had  ever  the  marvellous  flow  of  pointless 
proverbs  with  which  Lord  Sparkish,  Mr.  Neverout,  Miss 
Notable,  and  the  rest  manage  to  keep  the  ball  incessantly 
rolling.  The  talk  is  nonsensical,  as  most  small-talk  would 
be,  if  taken  down  by  a  reporter,  and,  according  to  modern 
standard,  hideously  vulgar,  and  yet  it  flows  on  with  such 
vivacity  that  it  is  perversely  amusing: 

"  Lady  Answerall.  But,  Mr.  Neverout,  I  wonder  why  such  a  hand- 
some, straight  young  gentleman  as  you  don't  get  some  rich  widow  ? 

"  Lord  Sparkish.  Straight !  Ay,  straight  as  my  leg,  and  that's 
crooked  at  the  knee. 

^''Neverout.  Truth,  madam,  if  it  had  rained  rich  widows,  none 
would  fall  upon  me.  Egad,  I  was  born  under  a  threepenny  planet, 
never  to  be  worth  a  groat." 

And  so  the  talk  flows  on,  and  to  all  appearance  might 
flow  forever. 

Swift  professes  in  his  preface  to  have  sat  many  hundred 
times,  with  his  table-book  ready,  without  catching  a  single 
phrase  for  his  book  in  eight  hours.     Truly  he  is  a  kind  of 


1»8  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Boswell  of  inanities,  and  one  is  amazed  at  the  quantity  of 
thought  which  must  have  gone  into  this  elaborate  trifling 
upon  trifles.  A  similar  vein  of  satire  upon  the  emptiness 
of  writers  is  given  in  his  Tritical  Essay  upon  the  Faculties 
of  the  Human  Mind ;  but  that  is  a  mere  skit  compared 
with  this  strange  performance.  The  Directions  to  Servants 
shows  an  equal  amount  of  thought  exerted  upon  the  va- 
rious misdoings  of  the  class  assailed.  Some  one  has  said 
that  it  is  painful  to  read  so  minute  and  remorseless  an 
exposure  of  one  variety  of  human  folly.  Undoubtedly  it 
suggests  that  Swift  must  have  appeared  to  be  an  omni- 
scient master.  Delany,  as  I  have  said,  testifies  to  his 
excellence  in  that  capacity.  Many  anecdotes  attest  the 
close  attention  which  he  bestowed  upon  every  detail  of 
his  servants'  lives,  and  the  humorous  reproofs  which  he 
administered.  "  Sweetheart,"  he  said  to  an  ugly  cook- 
maid  who  had  overdone  a  joint,  "  take  this  down  to 
the  kitchen  and  do  it  less."  "That  is  impossible,"  she 
replied.  "  Then,"  he  said,  "  if  you  must  commit  faults, 
commit  faults  that  can  be  mended."  Another  story  tells 
how,  when  a  servant  had  excused  himself  for  not  cleaning 
boots  on  the  ground  that  they  would  soon  be  dirty  again, 
Swift  made  him  apply  the  same  principle  to  eating  break- 
fast, which  would  be  only  a  temporary  remedy  for  hunger. 
In  this,  as  in  every  relation  of  life.  Swift  was  under  a 
kind  of  necessity  of  imposing  himself  upon  every  one  in 
contact  with  him,  and  followed  out  his  commands  into 
the  minutest  details.  In  the  Directions  to  Servants  he  has 
accumulated  the  results  of  his  experience  in  one  depart- 
ment ;  and  the  reading  may  not  be  without  edification  to 
the  people  who  every  now  and  then  announce  as  a  new 
discovery  that  servants  are  apt  to  be  selfish,  indolent,  and 
slatternly,  and  to  prefer  their  own  interests  to  their  ma&- 


«.]  DECLINE.  199 

ters'.  Probably  no  fault  could  be  found  with  the  modem 
successors  of  eighteenth -century  servants  which  has  not 
already  been  exemplified  in  Swift's  presentment  of  that 
golden  age  of  domestic  comfort.  The  details  are  not  al- 
together pleasant ;  but,  admitting  such  satire  to  be  legiti- 
mate, Swift's  performance  is  a  masterpiece. 

Swift,  however,  left  work  of  a  more  dignified  kind. 
Many  of  the  letters  in  his  correspondence  are  admirable 
specimens  of  a  perishing  art.  The  most  interesting  are 
those  which  passed  between  him.  Pope,  and  Bolingbroke, 
and  which  were  published  by  Pope's  contrivance  during 
Swift's  last  period.  "  I  look  upon  us  three,"  says  Swift, 
"  as  a  peculiar  triumvirate,  who  have  nothing  to  expect  or 
fear,  and  so  far  fittest  to  converse  with  one  another."  We 
may,  perhaps,  believe  Swift  when  he  says  that  he  "  never 
leaned  on  his  elbow  to  consider  what  he  should  write" 
(except  to  fools,  lawyers,  and  ministers),  though  we  cer- 
tainly cannot  say  the  same  of  his  friends.  Pope  and 
Bolingbroke  are  full  of  affectations,  now  transparent 
enough ;  but  Swift  in  a  few  trenchant,  outspoken  phrases 
dashes  out  a  portrait  of  himself  as  impressive  as  it  is  in 
some  ways  painful.  "We  must,  indeed,  remember,  in  read- 
ing his  inverse  hypocrisy,  his  tendency  to  call  his  own  mo- 
tives by  their  ugliest  names — a  tendency  which  is  specially 
pronounced  in  writing  letters  to  the  old  friends  whose  very 
names  recall  the  memories  of  past  happiness,  and  lead  him 
to  dwell  upon  the  gloomiest  side  of  the  present.  There  is, 
too,  a  characteristic  reserve  upon  some  points.  In  his  last 
visit  to  Pope,  Swift  left  his  friend's  house  after  hearing  the 
bad  accounts  of  Stella's  health,  and  hid  himself  in  London 
lodgings.  He  never  mentioned  his  anxieties  to  his  friend, 
who  heard  of  them  first  from  Sheridan ;  and  in  writing 
afterwards  from  Dublin,  Swift  excuses  himself  for  the 


200  SWIFT.  [chap. 

desertion  by  referring  to  his  own  ill-health — doubtless  a 
true  cause  ("  two  sick  friends  never  did  well  together ") 
— and  his  anxiety  about  his  affairs,  without  a  word  about 
Stella.  A  phrase  of  Bolingbroke's  in  the  previous  year 
about  "  the  present  Stella,  whoever  she  may  be,"  seems 
to  prove  that  he  too  had  no  knowledge  of  Stella  except 
from  the  poems  addressed  to  the  name.  Thero  were 
depths  of  feeling  which  Swift  could  not  lay  bare  to  the 
friend  in  whose  affection  he  seems  most  thoroughly  to 
have  trusted.  Meanwhile  he  gives  full  vent  to  the  scorn 
of  mankind  and  himself,  the  bitter  and  unavailing  hatred 
of  oppression,  and  above  all  for  that  strange  mingling  of 
pride  and  remorse,  which  is  always  characteristic  of  his 
turn  of  mind.  When  he  leaves  Arbuthnot  and  Pope  he 
expresses  the  warmth  of  his  feelings  by  declaring  that  he 
will  try  to  forget  them.  He  is  deeply  grieved  by  the  death 
of  Congreve,  and  the  grief  makes  him  almost  regret  that  he 
ever  had  a  friend.  He  would  give  half  his  fortune  for  the 
temper  of  an  easy-going  acquaintance  who  could  take  up  or 
lose  a  friend  as  easily  as  a  cat.  "  Is  not  this  the  true  happy 
man  ?"  The  loss  of  Gay  cuts  him  to  the  heart ;  he  notes  on 
the  letter  announcing  it  that  he  had  kept  the  letter  by  him 
five  days  "  by  an  impulse  foreboding  some  misfortune."  He 
cannot  speak  of  it  except  to  say  that  he  regrets  that  long 
living  has  not  hardened  him,  and  that  he  expects  to  die 
poor  and  friendless.  Pope's  ill -health  "hangs  on  his 
spirits."  His  moral  is  that  if  he  were  to  begin  the  world 
again  he  would  never  run  the  risk  of  a  friendship  with 
a  poor  or  sickly  man  —  for  he  cannot  harden  himself. 
"Therefore  I  argue  that  avarice  and  hardness  of  heart 
are  the  two  happiest  qualities  a  man  can  acquire  who  is 
late  in  his  life,  because  by  living  long  we  must  lessen  our 
friends  or  may  increase  our  fortunes."    This  bitterness  is 


IX.]  DECLINE.  201 

equally  apparent  in  regard  to  the  virtues  on  which  he 
most  prided  himself.  His  patriotism  was  owing  to  *'  per- 
fect rage  and  resentment,  and  the  mortifying  sight  of 
slavery,  folly,  and  baseness ;"  in  which,  as  he  says,  he  is 
the  direct  contrary  of  Pope,  who  can  despise  folly  and  hate 
vice  without  losing  his  temper  or  thinking  the  worse  of 
individuals.  "  Oppression  tortures  him,"  and  means  bit- 
ter hatred  of  the  concrete  oppressor.  He  tells  Barber  in 
1*7  3  8  that  for  three  years  he  has  been  but  the  shadow  of 
his  former  self,  and  has  entirely  lost  his  memory,  *'  except 
when  it  is  roused  by  perpetual  subjects  of  vexation." 
Commentators  have  been  at  pains  to  show  that  such  sen- 
timents are  not  philanthropic ;  yet  they  are  the  morbid 
utterance  of  a  noble  and  affectionate  nature  soured  by 
long  misery  and  disappointment.  They  brought  their 
own  punishment.  The  unhappy  man  was  fretting  him- 
self into  melancholy,  and  was  losing  all  sources  of  conso- 
lation. "  I  have  nobody  now  left  but  you,"  he  writes  to 
Pope  in  1736.  His  invention  is  gone;  he  makes  projects 
which  end  in  the  manufacture  of  waste  paper;  and  what 
vexes  him  most  is  that  his  "  female  friends  have  now  for- 
saken him."  "  Years  and  infirmities,"  he  says  in  the  end 
of  the  same  year  (about  the  date  of  the  Legion  Club), 
"  have  quite  broke  me ;  I  can  neither  read,  nor  write,  nor 
remember,  nor  converse.  All  I  have  left  is  to  walk  and 
ride."  A  few  letters  are  preserved  in  the  next  two  years 
■ — melancholy  wails  over  his  loss  of  health  and  spirit — 
pathetic  expressions  of  continual  affection  for  his  "  dearest 
and  almost  only  constant  friend,"  and  a  warm  request  or 
two  for  services  to  some  of  his  acquaintance. 

The  last  stage  was  rapidly  approaching.  Swift,  who 
had  always  been  thinking  of  death  in  these  later  years, 
had  anticipated  the  end  in  the  remarkable  verses  On  the 


202  SWIFT.  [chap. 

Death  of  Dr.  Swift.  This  and  two  or  three  other  per- 
formances of  about  the  same  period,  especially  the 
Rhapsody  on  Poetry  (1733)  and  the  Verses  to  a  Lady, 
are  Swift's  chief  title  to  be  called  a  poet.  How  far  that 
name  can  be  conceded  to  him  is  a  question  of  classifica- 
tion. Swift's  originality  appears  in  the  very  fact  that 
he  requires  a  new  class  to  be  made  for  him.  He  justified 
Dryden's  remark  in  so  far  as  he  was  never  a  poet  in  the 
sense  in  which  Milton  or  Wordsworth  or  Shelley  or  even 
Dryden  himself  were  poets.  His  poetry  may  be  called 
rhymed  prose,  and  should,  perhaps,  be  put  at  about  the 
same  level  in  the  scale  of  poetry  as  Hudibras.  It  differs 
from  prose,  not  simply  in  being  rhymed,  but  in  that  the 
metrical  form  seems  to  be  the  natural  and  appropriate 
mode  of  utterance.  Some  of  the  purely  sarcastic  and  hu- 
morous phrases  recall  Hudibras  more  nearly  than  anything 
else ;  as,  for  example,  the  often  quoted  verses  upon  small 
critics  in  the  Rhapsody  • 

"  The  vermin  only  tease  and  pinch 
Their  foes  superior  by  an  inch. 
So  naturalists  observe  a  flea 
Has  smaller  fleas  that  on  him  prey, 
And  these  have  smaller  still  to  bite  'em, 
And  so  proceed  ad  infinitum.^'' 

In  the  verses  on  his  own  death  the  suppressed  passion, 
the  glow  and  force  of  feeling  which  we  perceive  behind 
the  merely  moral  and  prosaic  phrases,  seem  to  elevate  the 
work  to  a  higher  level.  It  is  a  mere  running  of  every-day 
language  into  easy-going  verse ;  and  yet  the  strangely  min- 
gled pathos  and  bitterness,  the  peculiar  irony  of  which  he 
was  the  great  master,  affect  us  with  a  sentiment  which 
may  be  called  poetical  in  substance  more  forcibly  than 


IX.3  DECLIXE.  203 

far  more  dignified  and  in  some  sense  imaginative  perform- 
ances. Whatever  name  we  may  please  to  give  such  work, 
Swift  has  certainly  struck  home,  and  makes  an  impression 
■which  it  is  difficult  to  compress  into  a  few  phrases.  It  is 
the  essence  of  all  that  is  given  at  greater  length  in  the  cor- 
respondence, and  starts  from  a  comment  upon  Rochefou-' 
cauld*s  congenial  maxim  about  the  misfortunes  of  our 
friends.  He  tells  how  his  acquaintance  watch  his  decay, 
tacitly  congratulating  themselves  that "  it  is  not  yet  so  bad 
with  us ;"  how,  when  he  dies,  they  laugh  at  the  absurdity 
of  his  will : 

"  To  public  uses !    There's  a  whim ! 
What  had  the  public  done  for  him  ? 
Mere  envj,  avarice,  and  pride, 
He  gave  it  all — but  first  he  died." 

Then  we  have  the  comments  of  Queen  Caroline  and  Sir 
Robert,  and  the  rejoicings  of  Grub  Street  at  the  chance  of 
passing  o2  rubbish  by  calling  it  his.  His  friends  are 
really  touched: 

"  Poor  Pope  will  grieve  a  month,  and  Gay 
A  week,  and  Arbuthnot  a  day ; 
St.  John  himself  will  scarce  forbear 
To  bite  his  pen  and  drop  a  tear ; 
The  rest  will  give  a  shrug  and  cry, 
*  'Tis  pity,  but  we  all  must  die  V  " 

The  ladies  talk  over  it  at  their  cards.  They  have  learnt 
to  show  their  tenderness,  and 

"  Receive  the  news  in  doleful  dumps. 
The  Dean  is  dead  (pray  what  is  trumps  ?) ; 
Then  Lord  have  mercy  on  his  soul ! 
(Ladies,  Pll  venture  for  the  vole,)" 

The  poem  concludes,  as  usual,  with  an  impartial  char- 


204  SWIFT.  [chap. 

acter  of  the  Dean.  He  claims,  with  a  pride  not  unjustifia- 
ble, the  power  of  independence,  love  of  his  friends,  hatred 
of  corruption,  and  so  forth;  admits  that  he  may  have  had 
"  too  much  satire  in  his  vein,"  though  adding  the  very 
questionable  assertion  that  he  "  lashed  the  vice  but  spared 
the  name."  Marlborough,  Wharton,  Burnet,  Steele,  Wal- 
pole,  and  a  good  many  more,  might  have  had  something 
to  say  upon  that  head.     The  last  phrase  is  significant : 

"  He  gave  the  little  wealth  he  had 
To  build  a  house  for  fools  and  mad ; 
And  showed  by  one  satiric  touch 
No  nation  needed  it  so  much — 
That  kingdom  he  hath  left  his  debtor, 
I  wish  it  soon  may  have  a  better !" 

For  some  years,  in  fact,  Swift  had  spent  much  thought 
and  time  in  arranging  the  details  of  this  bequest.  He  ul- 
timately left  about  12,000^.,  with  which,  and  some  other 
contributions,  St.  Patrick's  Hospital  was  opened  for  fifty 
patients  in  the  year  1757. 

The  last  few  years  of  Swift's  life  were  passed  in  an  al- 
most total  eclipse  of  intellect.  One  pathetic  letter  to  Mrs. 
Whiteway  gives  almost  the  last  touch  :  "  I  have  been  very 
miserable  all  night,  and  to-day  extremely  deaf  and  full  of 
pain.  I  am  so  stupid  and  confounded  that  I  cannot  ex- 
press the  mortification  I  am  under  both  of  body  and  mind. 
All  I  can  say  is  that  I  am  not  in  torture ;  but  I  daily  and 
hourly  expect  it.  Pray  let  me  know  how  your  health  is 
and  your  family.  I  hardly  understand  one  word  I  write. 
I  am  sure  my  days  will  be  very  few,  for  miserable  they 
must  be.  If  I  do  not  blunder,  it  is  Saturday,  July  26, 
1740.  If  I  live  till  Monday,  I  shall  hope  to  see  you,  per- 
haps for  the  last  time."     Even  after  this  he  occasionally 


IX.]  DECLLS'E.  206 

showed  gleams  of  his  former  intelligence,  and  is  said  to 
have  written  a  well-known  epigram  during  an  outing  with 
his  attendants : 

"  Behold  a  proof  of  Irish  sense ! 
Here  Irish  wit  is  seen ! 
When  nothing's  left  that's  worth  defence 
They  build  a  magazine." 

Occasionally  he  gave  way  to  furious  outbursts  of  vio- 
lent temper,  and  once  suffered  great  torture  from  a  swell- 
ing in  the  eye.  But  his  general  state  seems  to  have  been 
apathetic ;  sometimes  he  tried  to  speak,  but  was  unable 
to  find  words.  A  few  sentences  have  been  recorded.  On 
hearing  that  preparations  were  being  made  for  celebrating 
his  birthday  he  said,  "  It  is  all  folly ;  they  had  better  let 
it  alone."  Another  time  he  was  heard  to  mutter,  "  I  am 
what  I  am;  I  am  what  I  am."  Few  details  have  been 
given  of  this  sad  period  of  mental  eclipse;  nor  can  we 
regret  their  absence.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  he  suffered 
occasional  tortures  from  the  development  of  the  brain-dis- 
ease ;  though  as  a  rule  he  enjoyed  the  painlessness  of  tor- 
por. The  unhappy  man  lingered  till  the  19th  of  October, 
1745,  when  he  died  quietly  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  after 
a  night  of  convulsions.  He  was  buried  in  St.  Patrick's 
Cathedral,  and  over  his  grave  was  placed  an  epitaph,  con- 
taining the  last  of  those  terrible  phrases  which  cling  to 
our  memory  whenever  his  name  is  mentioned.  Swift  lies, 
in  his  own  words, 

"  Ubi  sava  indignatio 
Cor  ulterius  lacerare  nequit." 

What  more  can  be  added? 

THE    END. 


{^ 


' 

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GENERAL  LIBRARY -U.C.  BERKELEY 


